RN  BRA, 
-  CALIF 

LIBRARY 

j    ANGELES,  CALIF. 


Procession  in  the  Red  Square  of  the  Kremlin,  Moscow 


RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 


BY  ;•;,  jy    " 

EDWARD  ALSWORTH  ROSS,  Ph.D.,  LL.D. 

Professor  of  Sociology,  University  of  Wisconsin.     Author 

of  "Social  Control,"  "Social  Psychology,"  "The 

Changing  Chinese,"  "Changing  America," 

"The  Old  World  in  the  New," 

"South  of  Panama,"  etc. 


ILLUSTRATED  WITH  MORE  THAN 
EIGHTY  PHOTOGRAPHS 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1918 

Nov-  l3lS 


O 


Q  7  QO 


Copyright,  1918,  by 
The  Centuey  Co. 


Published,  May,  1918 


G2U6 


3? 


TO 
CHARLES  R.  CRANE 

Lover  of  Russia  and  Friend  of  Every 

Effort  to  Promote  a  Sympathetic 

Understanding  Between  the 

Russian  People  and  the 

American  People 

THIS  BOOK  IS 

DEDICATED 


PEEFACE 

Scientific  Objectivity — this  has  been  my  guiding 
star  in  the  writing  of  this  book.  I  have  taken  it 
as  my  business  to  describe  impartially  the  major 
social  changes  going  on  in  Russia  during  my  so- 
journ there  in  the  latter  half  of  1917,  and  leave  it 
to  others  or  to  time  itself  to  judge  them.  The 
few  opinions  I  express  have  not  been  allowed  to 
color  my  narrative. 

No  doubt  my  account  will  seem  drab  to  a  pub- 
lic that  has  become  accustomed  to  the  iridiscent 
stories  of  revolutionary  Russia  that  have  been  ap- 
pearing in  our  periodicals.  Unfortunately  for  my 
readers  I  conceive  it  my  duty  to  present  the  typi- 
cal rather  than  the  bizarre.  I  could  easily  have 
unreeled  a  film  of  astonishing  and  sensational 
happenings,  such  as  present  themselves  in  trou- 
blous times,  which  would  leave  the  reader  with 
the  impression  that  .the  Russians  are  fools  or 
madmen.  It  happens,  however,  that  I  found  the 
Russians  behaving  much  as  I  should  were  I  in 
their  place  and  furnished  with  their  experience. 

The  reader  may  be  disappointed  that  I  have 
not  discussed  the  effect  of  the  Revolution  upon 
Russia's  attitude  toward  the  belligerent  nations 
nor  the  question  of  Russia's  future  relation  to  the 
war.    On  these  momentous  topics  I  have  remained 


viii  PEEFACE 

silent  for  the  simple  reason  that  I  have  nothing 
authoritative  to  offer. 

In  the  transliteration  of  certain  Eussian  words 
and  proper  names  used  in  the  text  I  have  ventured 
to  depart  from  current  usage  in  order  to  approach 
as  closely  as  possible  the  Eussian  pronunciation. 
Further  to  safeguard  against  mispronunciation  I 
have  placed  an  accent  mark  over  the  vowel  of  the 
syllable  upon  which  the  accent  should  fall. 

I  wish  to  acknowledge  my  debt  to  the  American 
Institute  of  Social  Service,  at  the  instance  of 
which  I  went  to  Eussia  to  examine  and  report  upon 
the  prospects  of  practical  social  progress  there. 
I  am  indebted  to  my  colleague,  Doctor  Selig  Perl- 
man,  lecturer  on  Eussian  Economic  and  Social 
Development,  for  valuable  aid  on  several  matters, 
particularly  on  the  subject  of  Eevolutionary 
Movements  and  Parties. 

I  have  also  to  thank  my  travel-comrade,  Mr. 
M.  0.  Williams  and  his  journal,  The  Christian 
Herald,  for  permission  to  use  certain  of  his  photo- 
graphs after  the  bulk  of  my  own  had  met  with 
disaster. 

Edwabd  Alsw.obth  Eoss 
Madison,  Wisconsin 
May,  1918 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 

PAGE 

Twice  Across  Siberia 3 

The  eight-hour  day  for  sailors — Anarchists  versus 
Socialists — The  free-speech  question — Freight  conges- 
tion at  Vladivostok — Bureaucratic  badgering — The 
charm  of  eastern  Siberia — Tales  of  the  old  regime — 
Official  red  tape — "No  authority" — Repelling  boarders 
— The  kipyatok — Acres  of  fire  wood — Petrograd — The 
return  five  months  later — Flooded  with  soldiers — The 
burning  of  the  troop  train — Atrocities — Siberia  in  win- 
ter— Growing  tension — Civil  war  in  Irkutsk — "There's 
freedom  now" — Harbin — Arrival  in  a  land  of  order 
and  good  cheer. 

CHAPTER  II 
The  Volga  and  the  Caspian  to  Tiflis  ....     30 

Shining  Nijni-Novgorod — Why  goods  are  so  scarce — 
Labor  problems — Sormova — The  banishing  of  vodka — 
Tartary — Queer  Finnish  tribes — Resurgent  heathenism 
— "Bulgari" — Fate  of  the  German  colonists — Saratof 
— Chaos  in  public  offices — The  Lower  Volga — Kalmucks 
— Why  Russia  was  belated — Riverside  hamlets — Defor- 
estation and  erosion — Soil  exhaustion — Dying  fisheries 
— The  Caspian — Oil  fires  at  Baku — Signs  of  the  East. 

CHAPTER  III 

Impressions  from  the  Caucasus    ■ 53 

The  eye-feast  of  Tiflis — The  cross-roads  of  the  Levant 
—Beauty  of  the  Georgians — "Down  with  whiskers!" — 
The  tcherkeska — An  excursion  into  the  Past — Why 
"mountaineers  are  always  freemen" — Eagle-faced  hill- 
ix 


CONTENTS 

FAGS 

men — Primitive  ways — The  thralldom  of  the  Georgian 
Church — The  fete  at  Mtzchet — Khevsurs  and  Crusaders 
— Feasting  and  merry-making — Picturesque  types — The 
Valley  of  the  Alasan — Georgian  progressiveness. 


CHAPTER  IV 
The  Film  of  Eussian  Central  Asia     ....     70 

Turcomans  of  the  oasis — Queer  costumes — In  a  Shiite 
mosque — Bokhara,  the  City  of  Steady  Hahits — Bazaar 
life — Impermanency  of  mud  cities — Samarcand — Fergh- 
ana— A  cotton  kingdom — Walled  farmsteads — Moham- 
medism  and  commercial  farming. 

CHAPTER  V 

The  Rug  Market  at  Merv     .......     84 

The  fair  at  Merv — A  freshet  of  rugs — "Dusty  foot" — 
Old  rugs  and  new — "Striking  a  bargain" — Origin  of  the 
rug-weaving  art — How  the  carpets  are  made — Compara- 
tive fineness — The  invasion  of  coal-tar  dyes — Exploita- 
tion of  the  women — Deterioration  of  the  Turcoman 
breed  owing  to  the  commercialization  of  rug-making. 

CHAPTER  VI 
The  Russian  People         .     .     .     > 101 

Eussian  responsiveness — Gift  of  intuition — Gregarious- 
ness — Humaneness — Why  the  masses  will  do  brutal 
things — Mental  contagion — Meriatchenja — Aversion  to 
fighting — Why  the  Cossack — Moujik  hard-headedness — 
A  winter-made  people — "Black  hundreds" — Rarity  of  eye- 
glasses— Illiteracy  and  ignorance — Passion  for  listening 
to  speeches — Why  no  patriotism — Russian  tolerance — 
Want  of  standards — Goodness  of  Slavic  nature — When 
will  the  Russians  arrive? — How  the  Germans  look  upon 
them — Their  Kultur  theory — Traits  of  the  educated 
Russians — Why  Russians  and  Americans  should  be 
good  friends. 


CONTENTS  xi 


CHAPTER  VII 

PAGE 

Soil  Hunger  and  the  Land  Question  ....  133 

Siberian  pioneering — Russian  agriculture — Communal 
feuds — Folly  of  strip  tillage — Redistributing  the  com- 
mon land — Rural  villages — How  a  great  estate  is  man- 
aged— Nobles  lose  their  land  to  peasants — Land  hunger 
— Soil  robbing — Doomed  estates — Shall  the  land  owners 
be  compensated? — Peasants  helping  themselves — Land 
committees — Individual  ownership  of  land  necessary  for 
the  development  of  the  moujika. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
The  Roots  op  the  Revolution 154 

Tsar  glorification — When  did  Autocracy  become  a  mill- 
stone about  the  neck  of  the  Russian  people? — The  duel 
between  the  Terrorists  and  the  Government — "Propa- 
ganda by  deed" — The  character  of  Nicholas  II — Grow- 
ing diabolism  of  his  Government — Persecution  of  the 
Children  of  Light  by  the  Sons  of  Darkness — The  con- 
cessions of  1905 — The  Duma  farce — Mismanagement  of 
the  war — Overthrow  of  Stunner — The  Rasputin  affair — 
The  provocative  Protopopof — Hunger  riots — The  events 
of  the  March  Revolution. 


CHAPTER  IX 
Returning  Revolutionists     .......  175 

Revolutionists,  sham  and  real — Data  concerning  a  party 
of  homing  refugees — Story  of  B — Story  of  a  woman 
revolutionist — The  "life  of  the  hunted" — Loyalty  to 
one  another — The"  revolutionists'  opinion  of  America — 
Confidence  in  the  masses — Why  the  revolutionists  are 
all  socialists — Prevalence  of  Marxism  among  Russian 
University  students — How  persecution  interrupted  the 
intellectual  development  of  the  radicals — The  repatri- 
ated revolutionists  responsible  for  the  triumph  of  Bol- 
shevism. 


xii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  X 

PAGE 

Revolutionary  Movements  and  Parties     .     .     .  196 

Causes  of  the  political  incompetency  of  the  bourgeoisie 
— The  intelligentsia  as  political  leaders — Rise  of  the 
Narodniki — Their  idealization  of  the  obshchina — The 
coming  in  of  Marxism — Social  Revolutionists,  Social 
Democrats  and  Kadets — What  the  different  parties  ex- 
pected from  the  Revolution — Mensheviki  and  Bolsheviki 
— Why  the  8ovyets  rose  against  the  Kerensky  Govern- 
'  ment — Land  policy  of  the  Bolsheviki — My  interview 
with  Trotzky — The  "control"  of  the  factories — Where 
the  capital  will  come  from — How  productivity  will  be 
kept  up — Can  the  leaders  control  the  proletariat? 

CHAPTER  XI 
Caste  and  Democracy     , 215 

Excessive  concentration  of  wealth  in  Russia — Class 
contrasts — The  system  and  its  purpose — Origin  of  the 
great  estates — The  rise  of  serfdom — A  century  and  a 
half  of  slavery — Emancipation  a  "cheat" — Weaness 
of  caste  feeling  among  Russians — Fraternal  manners — 
Influence  of  the  "people-worshipping"  intelligentsia — 
The  revolution  quickens  the  self-assertiveness  of  the 
masses — Why  the  bourgeoisie  put  up  no  resistance — A 
troop  train  in  Kakhetia — The  loss  of  military  discipline 
— The  heritage  from  the  Old  Regime — Errors  of  the 
Revolutionists — Bolshevist  responsibility  for  the  de- 
moralization of  the  army. 

CHAPTER  XII 
Russian  Women  and  Their  Outlook  ....  237 

The  moral  superiority  of  women — Russian  women  in 
new  jobs — Attitude  toward  their  work — Stronger  than 
men  under  temptation — Their  excellence  of  character 
— Want  of  chivalry  in  Russian  men — Is  male  chivalry 
good  for  women? — Independent  spirit  of  Russian  young 
women — Admission  of  women  to  the  professions — Ac- 
cess to  the  higher  schools — Russian  high  school  girls — 


^K 


CONTENTS  xiii 

PAGE 

Ideals  of  Russian  •women — The  "women's  battalion" — 
Causes  of  the  emancipation  of  women  in  Russia — Girls' 
schools,  "advanced"  thought,  the  r6le  of  the  girl  revo- 
lutionists— Prospects  of  the  peasant  women. 

CHAPTER  XIII 
Labor  and  Capital 263 

A  feudal-minded  employer — How  the  old  regime  held 
down  labor — Exploiting  labor  with  a  free  hand — The 
effects  of  the  Revolution  on  the  working  people — The 
newborn  sense  of  self-respect — Suppression  of  tips  and 
of  petty  graft — Helplessness  of  employers — Wage  de- 
mands— The  eight-hour  day — The  slump  in  productivity 
— The  employer  loses  the  power  to  "hire  and  fire" — 
The  dismissal  wage — Grotesque  demands — "Drunk  with 
liberty" — Syndicalist  excesses — The  Sovyet  organiza- 
tion— Why  the  bourgeoisie  lay  down. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
Religion,  the  Church,  and  the  Sects  ....  288 

Abundance  of  religious  observances — The  Orthodox 
priests — Russian  Church  interiors — The  social  inertness 
of  the  Church — Lack  of  moral  leadership — Is  Orthodoxy 
a  dead  religion?  Christian  traits  of  the  people — Alms- 
giving— Monasticism — Religious  emotion  the  aim  of  the 
Church — Orthodoxy  as  the  Christianity  of  a  thousand 
years  ago — Symbolism — Bondage  of  Church  to  State — 
Pobiedonostsef — The  Sobor — Can  the  Church  survive? — 
The  moral  superiority  of  the  Sectarians. 

CHAPTER  XV 
The  United  States  of  Russia     ......  304 

A  Kommissar  in  Turkestan — The  Empire  as  champion 
of  order  and  progress — Bad  side  of  Russian  imperial- 
ism— Setting  race  on  race — Assertion  of  balked  desires 
after  the  collapse  of  the  old  regime — Demands  of  the 
Non-Russian  nationalities — Finland — Ukraina — The  Cos- 


xiv  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

sack  territories — Georgia — Tartar  aspirations — Siberia 
— Turkestan — A  Federal  union  for  Russia — Functions 
of  a  Central  government — Commerce,  education  and  re- 
ligion— Prospects  of  union. 

CHAPTER  XVI 
Prospects  and  Lessons .     .  330 

The  workers'  republic — Signs  of  stability — Getting 
under  way — Restoring  order — Are  the  Bolsheviki  an- 
archists?— Are  Lenine  and  Trotzky  German  agents? — 
Will  the  peasants  accept  proletarian  leadership? — Will 
the  higher  services  be  supported? — The  upward  path 
the  peasants  should  follow — The  workers'  republic  not 
necessarily  socialistic — Costliness  of  social  revolution 
— Influence  of  the  Russian  example  upon  labor  every- 
where— Is  our  country  immune  to  anti-capitalist  agi- 
tation?— What  we  must  do  to  be  safe. 

Index 351 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 


Procession  in  the  Red  Square  of  the  Kremlin,  Mos- 
cow  Frontispiece 

Revolutionary  parties  in  Russia 2 

A  returning  soldier 9 

Soldiers  resting  while  the  train  waits     ....  10 

Soldiers  boarding  train 19 

Crowds  at  station 20 

Baku  oil  fire  at  three  miles 33 

Kazan  Wharf  scene 33 

Volga  dredge 34 

Saratof 34 

Volga  voyagers 39 

Government  grain  elevator,  Samara    .           ...  39 

A  section  of  the  Caucasian  Military  Road     ...  40 
Chain   mail   is   still   worn   in   Georgian   historical 

pageants 49 

Holidaying  at  Mtzchet 49 

Bringing  down  sheep  in  October,  Caucasus  ...  50 

Daryal  Gorge,  Castle  of  Tamara 63 

Inn  in  the  Caucasus 64 

Tsaritzuin  market  scene 73 

Ossetian  hut  in  the  Caucasus 73 

Mt.  Kasbek 74 

xv 


xvi  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Registan,  Bokhara 79 

Teacher  and  pupil,  Bokhara 79 

Friday  in  a  mosque,  Samarcand 80 

Rug  merchant  at  Merv  displaying  his  goods     .      .  85 

Scene  in  the  rug  market  at  Merv 86 

Turkomans  in  the  rug  market,  Merv 91 

Striking  a  bargain  in  Merv  Rug  Market     ...  92 

A  Bokhara  Caravanserai 92 

Street  of  Tombs,  Samarcand 97 

The  rug  merchant  arrives,  Merv 97 

Village  of  Old  Kobe,  Caucasus 98 

A  shoemaker  of  Askhabad 103 

Beggars 104 

Afghans  before  their  tent,  Bairam  Ali     ....  109 

Turcomans  at  station  in  Transcaspia  ....  110 

A  Turcoman,  Geok  Tepe 119 

A  Georgian  in  tcherheska 120 

A  street  merchant  of  Tsaritzuin 120 

A  Georgian  shepherd 125 

Melon  dealer,  Bokhara 125 

A  Caucasian  Highlander  of  Scottish  type     .      .      .  126 

A  solid  citizen  of  Samarcand 131 

A  camel  driver,  Bokhara 131 

On  the  road  to  Hindoo  Kush,  Turkestan  ....  132 

Street  seller,  Bokhara 132 

Four  men  and  twelve  men  working  one  plow,  near 

Dushet,  Caucasus 141 

A  threshing  floor  in  the  Caucasus 142 

Russian  village  scene 147 


ILLUSTRATIONS  xvii 


PAGE 


A  village  street 148 

Children  of  Mt.  Kasbek 157 

College  students,  Samarcand 158 

Courtyard  of  a  college  in  Bokhara 158 

Pool  in  front  of  a  Bokhara  mosque 183 

In  front  of  the  Medresseh,  Bokhara 183 

Mausolea  erected  by  Tamerlane  in  Samarcand  .     .  184 

Entrance  to  Shakh-Zinda,  Samarcand     ....  201 

A  gateway,  Samarcand 202 

Storks'  nests,  Bokhara 202 

A  Georgian  beauty,  Kakhetia 235 

A  Georgian  type,  Kakhetia 236 

A  Georgian  woman,  Kakhetia 236 

A  Tiflis  type — half  Georgian,  half  Russian       .     .  252 
Haystacks  on  steep  meadows  near  Krestovi  Pass, 

Caucasus 253 

Russian  women  working  on  railroad  bed     .     .      .  261 

Women  vendors  at  railway  station 262 

A  Tarantass 262 

The  Study  of  Theology,  Bokhara 290 

The  Registan,  Samarcand 290 

Baku 291 

The  Tombs  of  Bokhara 291 

Religious  fanatics,  Bokhara 299 

Howling  Dervishes,  Bokhara 299 

Russian  woman  convict — whose  only  offence  was  the 

enlightenment  and  elevation  of  the  poor     .     .  300 
Monument  to  Skobeloff's  victory  over  the  Turco- 
mans of  Geok  Tepe 313 


xviii  ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 


The  Tsar  Cannon — The  Kremlin,  Moscow     .     .     .  313 

Bugs  are  cheap  in  this  district 314 

Russian  fish  seller 327 

Woman  binding  wheat 328 

Scenery  near  the  Georgian  Military  Road     .     .     .  337 
The  Georgian  Military  Road  near  entrance  to  Dar- 
yal Gorge 338 


Forty  of  these  pictures  are  used  by  courtesy  of  the  Christian 
Herald,  to  which  the  author  extends  his  thanks. 


RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 


REVOLUTIONARY  PARTIES  IN  RUSSIA. 


NARODNIKI 


MARXIANS 


"People's  Willi'  1879 
1881 


/TchernishevskyA 
v  Lavrof     ' 

Bakuninbts,.  1869 
"V-Narod  Movement"  1872 


%and  and  Freedom"  1876 

"Black  Redivisiorv"  (PlecKanof),  1879 


Group  of  Emar\ci 


sation  of  Labor,  1883 
(Plechanof) 


SOCIAL  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY.  1898 


SOCIAL  REVOLUTIONARY 
PARTY.  1901 


Maximalists 


1917  Revolution. 


IQ05 


evolution    > 190! 

yet'oTwork-l/ 

n-s  DalegatwfS^  |gL. 


'Sovyet' 


I      V     I     f 

Maximalists  LeftWing      Center    RightWing  Labor-     Leninists         United  Inter-     Intemation-  "Defenders"     UmtyGroup 
^SpinoUvaV acrlerr^(Ker^ky)^^b^'  (frottkj)     (Axelrod)  ^^ Jj£W 


"•Sovyet" of  Soldiers*  and  Workmen's  Delegates 
Cenrt'ejiy  of DnSelig  Perlman 


RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

CHAPTER  I 
TWICE  ACROSS  SIBERIA 

BEFORE  we  set  foot  on  Siberia  we  are  given 
to  know  that  the  Russian  Revolution  is  real. 
Not  only  are  we  confronted  at  the  dock  with  a  big 
red  banner  bearing  the  words, l '  Long  live  the  Rus- 
sian Proletariat, "  but  the  sailors  quit  work  as  soon 
as  we  have  docked,  on  the  ground  that  they  have 
already  put  in  an  eight  hour  day.  So,  with  the  aid 
of  a  man  at  the  winch,  we  passengers  get  our 
trunks  out  of  the  hold  as  best  we  can.  My  ship- 
comrades,  all  homing  revolutionists,  are  piloted  to 
the  barracks  which  quarter  many  hundred  politi- 
cal refugees  flowing  into  Russia  through  this  port. 
There  they  are  provided  with  meals  by  the  Sovyet 
Council  of  Workmen's  and  Soldiers'  Deputies  and 
remain  until  their  status  has  been  verified  and  they 
can  be  sent  out  on  the  post  train.  Every  day  # 
leaves,  crowded  to  the  gunwales  with  travelers 
who  will  have- little  chance  to  rest  horizontally  till 
they  reach  Petrograd  sixteen  days  later. 

Not  a  few  of  the  inflowing  are  anarchists,  rather 
than  socialists,  use  the  word  ''anarchist"  in  their 
party  name,  and  unfurl  the  black  flag  sooner  than 

3 


4  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

the  red.  While  waiting  to  be  forwarded  they  mix 
into  local  politics  and  nearly  every  day  address 
political  meetings.  But  even  a  sand-lot  audience 
gets  restive  at  their  proposal  to  divide  all  prop- 
erty forthwith.  In  one  case  listening  sailors  pro- 
posed that  the  anarchists  begin  by  dividing  the 
contents  of  certain  fine  trunks  they  had  brought 
with  them.  In  another  case  an  old  man  inter- 
rupted with  this  question: 

"  Fifteen  years  ago  I  came  here  with  only  two 
rubles  in  my  pocket,  but  now  I  own  a  house,  a  gar- 
den, and  a  cow.  If  they  are  divided  up  now  and 
fifteen  years  from  now  some  fellow  who  has  spent 
his  share  comes  round  and  wants  me  to  divide  up 
the  next  house,  garden,  and  cow  that  I  have,  must 
I  do  it?" 

"Yes,"  said  the  orator,  and  then  the  old  man 
hit  him. 

Small  wonder  that  several  anarchist  propagan- 
dists were  in  the  hospital  from  rough  treatment 
and  that  one  died! 

I  attend  a  Sunday  open-air  meeting  of  about 
five  hundred,  addressed  by  speakers  who  strive  to 
arouse  suspicion  of  the  Provisional  Government 
in  Petrograd  and  advocate  the  entire  independ- 
ence of  Vladivostok  from  the  rest  of  Eussia. 
These  "anarchist-communists"  wish  to  see  the 
country  dissolved  into  thousands  of  independent 
communities.  The  difficulty  of  keeping  a  unified 
system  of  transportation  and  a  free  exchange  of 
goods  seems  never  to  occur  to  them.  Nor  do  they 
consider  how  a  community  possessing  indispensa- 


TWICE  ACROSS  SIBERIA  r> 

ble  natural  deposits  may  hold  up  all  the  rest,  how- 
strife  between  communities  will  be  avoided,  or  how 
they  will  escape  being  swallowed,  one  after  the 
other,  by  some  greedy  neighboring  empire. 

Already  the  question  of  muzzling  the  anarchists 
is  mooted  among  the  socialists,  who  foresee  dis- 
aster if  anarchist  doctrines  find  favor  with  the  ig- 
norant. The  fact  is  that  free  speech  and  a  free 
press  may  be  a  menace  when  the  mass  is  too  sim- 
ple-minded to  resist  noxious  or  fallacious  ideas 
which  chime  with  its  blind  impulses.  Free  com- 
munication is  a  safe  policy  only  for  an  intelligent 
people.  In  view  of  the  crazy  propaganda  which 
certain  half-baked  enthusiasts  maintain,  a  society 
to  which  free  speech  is  dear  ought  to  immunize 
itself  against  subversive  doctrines  by  teaching  the 
principles  of  order  and  progress  to  as  many  as 
possible  of  its  young  people.  All  high  school  stu- 
dents certainly,  and  perhaps  the  eighth-grade 
pupils,  should  be  instructed  in  the  fundamentals 
of  government.  If  every  third  or  fourth  person 
can  at  once  put  his  finger  on  the  fallacies  of  an- 
archism, the  soap-box  orators  will  be  taken  care 
of  by  their  hearers. 

But  the  Bolshevist  Social  Democrats  cannot  be 
acquittedof  themselves  resorting  to  anarchist 
tactics  when  they  ended  Russia's  participation  in 
the  war  not  by  changing  public  opinion  or  by  over- 
throwing the  government,  but  by  persuading 
soldiers  to  mutiny  and  munition-workers  to  prac- 
tice sabotage.  If  such  tactics  were  followed  by 
their  enemies  in  order  to  defeat  the  deliberately- 


6  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

chosen  policy  of  the  socialist  state,  they  would  have 
no  difficulty  in  recognizing  them  for  what  they  are 
— the  path  to  chaos  and  ruin. 

In  Vladivostok  on  every  hand  are  evidences  of 
the  traffic  congestion  on  the  Trans-Siberian  line. 
In  a  single  block  of  the  street  fronting  my  hotel  are 
thirty-eight  giant  packing-cases  containing  Mit- 
chell automobiles.  These  have  been  lying  out 
there  till  their  tops  have  been  crushed  in  by  the 
snow.  On  vacant  lots  are  thousands  of  cases  of 
American  machinery,  marked  "Keep  dry,"  which 
have  been  lying  uncovered  for  a  year.  Cider- 
presses  are  there,  -and  pulp-machines,  steam- 
evaporators,  slicers,  parers,  kraut-cutters, 
scalders,  fillers,  and  corkers — all  consigned  to  the 
Russian  Department  of  Agriculture.  Along  the 
railway  for  blocks  are  mountains  of  perishable 
freight,  some  of  them  twenty  or  twenty-five  feet 
high,  covered  with  matting  or  tarpaulins.  A  few 
months  ago  a  million  tons  of  freight  were  piled 
up  here,  but  ten  thousand  American  steel  freight- 
cars  have  reduced  it  a  little,  and  thirty  thousand 
more  cars  are  expected  soon. 

An  experience  of  my  friend  R ,  a  Master  of 

Arts  of  Columbia  University  and  a  leader  of  the 
Lettish  Revolution  in  1905,  throws  light  on  why 
"All  power  to  the  Sovyets!"  finally  became  the 
slogan  of  the  masses.  He  presents  at  the  office  of 
the  local  administration  his  certificate  from  the 
political-immigrants  committee  of  the  Sovyet,  and 
they  insist  it  must  be  verified,  to  assure  them  it  is 
not    forged.    He    suggests    telephoning    to    the 


TWICE  ACROSS  SIBERIA  7 

Sovyet  headquarters,  and  they  agree  to  do  so. 
After  waiting  an  hour,  he  appeals  to  the  head 
man,  who  promises  the  matter  shall  be  attended  to 
at  once.  He  waits  another  hour,  and  is  then  told 
to  come  to-morrow.  He  loses  a  day  and  the  com- 
fort of  traveling  with  his  friends  because  some 
malicious  underling  takes  pleasure  in  holding  up 
a  revolutionist.  The  lordly  way  that  Russian 
public  offices  were  run  under  the  old  regime  would 
breed  a  riot  in  half  a  day  in  an  American  town, 
but  now  they  are  worse  than  ever.  Then  there 
was  some  control  from  above,  and  the  underling 
could  not  safely  harass  the  citizen.  Now  control 
from  above  is  uncertain  because  of  the  rise  of 
the  local  sovyet,  and  still  the  latter  does  not  know 
how  to  exact  efficiency  of  them,  nor  does  it  inter- 
est itself  much  in  such  matters  as  needless  delays 
in  serving  the  public.  In  the  public  offices  are 
many  who  in  their  hearts  hate  the  revolution 
which  has  spoiled  their  prospects  of  rising  from 
rank  to  rank  in  government  service,  and  they  vent 
their  spleen  wherever  they  dare.  These  hold- 
overs and  the  dearth  of  men  qualified  to  do  their 
work  cause  great  embarrassment  to  the  new  re- 
gime. 

Northern  Manchuria,  certainly  a  charming 
country  in  July,  is  little  inhabited  yet,  and  for 
long  it  will  absorb  like  a  dry  sponge.  The  rare 
j\lanchu  homesteads  look  rather  attractive.  Un- 
like the  Chinese,  the  Manchus  keep  their  queues, 
which  to  them  are  not  a  thing  oi  alien  imposition. 
"West  of  the  Great  Khingan  we  travel  for  leagues 


8  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

a  virgin  valley  gay  with  wild  flowers,  the  low  hills 
tree-clad,  the  whole  reminding  one  of  the  lovely 
parks  in  the  Rocky  Mountains.  Further  on  we 
pass  grazing  camels  and  the  round  tents  of  the 
nomad  Buriats. 

The  valleys  of  Eastern  Siberia  have  the  charm 
of  recent  occupation.  No  mud  dwellings,  no 
stenches  and  squalor,  no  human  beings  serving  as 
beasts  of  burden,  no  deforestation,  soil  erosion, 
and  turbid  streams  such  as  characterize  China. 
One  rejoices  in  the  sight  of  substantial  houses, 
wheeled  vehicles  everywhere,  and  an  abundance 
of  animals  at  pasture.  It  is  Sunday,  and  over 
meandering  roads  pioneer  families  are  driving 
to  worship  in  a  new  church  with  bright  green 
cupolas.  Over  the  entrance  to  one  of  the  stations 
hangs  a  banner  emblazoned,  "Long  live  Liberty!" 
Barefoot  urchins  cheer  the  passing  train,  just  as 
they  do  in  Montana.  At  Khilok  station  a  large 
crowd  in  Sunday  best  fills  the  platform,  and  men 
in  brilliant  silk  shirts,  belted  in  at  the  waist, 
promenade  with  girls  in  scarfs  and  neckerchiefs 
of  the  gayest  colors.  All  the  buildings  that  be- 
long to  the  railroad  or  its  employees  are  well 
painted  and  neat,  with  trees  and  shrubbery  be- 
ginning to  embower  them.  The  fact  is,  none  of 
our  Transcontinental  railroads  match  in  road-bed 
and  construction  the  Trans-Siberian  line.  In 
massiveness  and  finish  it  compares  with  the  Penn- 
sylvania system. 

On  this  ten-day  journey,  the  longest  that  can 
be  made  on  the  globe  without  a  change  of  cars, 


> 
3 


8 

— 


TWICE  ACROSS  SIBERIA  11 

the  through  passengers  become  intimate,  like  fel- 
low-voyagers at  sea.  After  a  few  days  we  get  up 
an  amateur  concert  for  the  benefit  of  war  widows. 
In  the  restaurant-car  we  are  so  overcharged  and 
cheated  that  soon  we  patronize  the  station  buf- 
fets, which  are  very  good,  and  raid  the  baskets  of 
the  country-women  purveying  roast  fowl,  currant 
tarts,  rolls  of  butter,  and  boxes  of  wild  straw- 
berries. The  train  porters  make  hundreds  of 
rubles  apiece  buying  flour,  sugar,  and  other  edi- 
bles in  Siberia  and  smuggling  them  into  Petrograd 
in  the  luggage-loft  of  the  staterooms.  This  specu- 
lation so  occupies  them  that  they  give  little  time 
to  caring  for  their  cars. 

My  fellow-passenger,  L ,  a  young  American 

doctor  with  a  fetching  way,  who  for  a  year  and  a 
half  has  worked  among  the  German  and  Austrian 
prisoners  in  Siberia,  relates  many  illuminating 
things  to  us.  Once  his  private  car  lay  for  an  hour 
at  Chita.  On  one  side  was  a  train  full  of  dirty, 
haggard,  Austrian  prisoners.  On  the  other  were 
prison-cars,  virtually  cages,  full  of  hard-labor 
Russian  criminals  and  political  exiles  in  ball-and- 
chain.  At  the  platform  was  a  trainload  of  lads 
leaving  for  the  front,  beset  by  their  mothers, 
sweethearts,  and  sisters  whom  the  police  were 
roughly  hustling  so  that  the  train  might  pull  out. 
Such  a  concentration  of  human  anguish  and  de- 
spair! "For  the  next  two  nights/'  he  says,  "I 
could  not  sleep  for  the  screams  of  those  women 
ringing  in  my  ears." 

One  winter  day  when  the  temperature  was  35 


12  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

degrees  below  zero,  he  saw  a  lone  box-car  at  a 
little  Siberian  station.  Men  and  horses  were  in  it, 
and  on  account  of  the  horses  the  men  could  not 
make  a  fire  to  warm  themselves.  For  three  days 
they  had  been  there  in  ordinary  clothing,  without 
food,  tea,  or  blankets.  One  of  them  was  being 
lifted  from  the  car,  perishing  of  cold,  and  the 
others  were  so  nearly  dead  themselves  that  they 
could  not  carry  him  to  the  nearest  house  a  mile 
away.  None  of  them  knew  why  their  car  had  been 
left  there.  "That  's  Russia !"  declares  the 
doctor. 

He  tells,  also,  how  under  the  old  regime  a  cer- 
tain commandant  in  charge  of  a  big  military 
prison  in  Siberia  made  himself  intensely  hated 
by  charging  the  prisoners  for  attending  a  concert 
they  got  up  themselves,  preventing  the  estab- 
lishment of  diet-kitchens  for  the  sick  and  thwart- 
ing their  project  to  set  up  a  system  of  schools  in 
the  camps.  One  of  his  favorite  pastimes  was  to 
kick  prisoners  in  the  stomach.  One  day  a  victim 
waited  for  him  with  an  ax  and,  as  he  came  round 
the  corner  of  a  building,  slashed  his  head  off. 
The  next  in  command  buried  the  body  and  had  the 
prisoner  shot;  but  the  Russian  soldiers  so  de- 
spised the  officer  that  they  exhumed  his  body  and 
reburied  it  upside  down,  with  the  feet  sticking 
out  of  the  ground! 

In  Manchuria  he  encountered  a  Russian  station- 
master  who  for  from  300  to  1000  rubles  would 
sell  the  use  of  a  freight-car  to  any  merchant  who 
wanted  to  bring  in  wine  or  leather,  so  that  when 


TWICE  ACROSS  SIBERIA  13 

it  came  to  getting  in  Red  Cross  supplies  for  suf- 
fering prisoners,  cars  were  not  to  be  had.  He 
has  noticed,  too,  that  the  officer  who  shows  un- 
usual zeal  and  skill  at  the  front  is  sure  to  be  side- 
tracked in  a  Siberian  job.  Thus  General  Skinsky, 
who  distinguished  himself  in  the  war  zone  as  an 
organizer,  was  put  in  charge  of  the  military  dis- 
trict about  Irkutsk,  while  another,  who  as  second 
in  charge  of  transportation  on  one  of  the  fronts 
had  made  a  great  record,  was  sent  to  look  after 
a  section  of  the  Trans-Siberian  system.  "Very 
queer!"  added  the  doctor. 

At  Irkutsk  I  meet  an  American  official  with  in- 
teresting tales.  He  has  ferreted  out  an  extensive 
organization  of  Germans  in  Siberia,  and  lately 
there  have  been  many  arrests.  Dynamite  is  be- 
ing brought  in  on  camels  from  China  through 
Mongolia.  Recently  two  hundred-weight  of  the 
explosive  was  discovered  in  one  of  the  tunnels 
that  carry  the  track  around  the  southern  end  of 
Lake  Baikal.  Now  every  bridge  and  tunnel  is 
guarded,  and  the  windows  are  closed  and  watched 
when  the  train  passes  over  an  important  viaduct. 
By  the  railroad,  not  far  from  Irkutsk,  are  piled  up 
four  million  pounds  of  Siberian  meat,  spoiling  in 
the  July  sun  because  there  is  no  railway  stock  for 
moving  it  to  Russia. 

My  informant  declares  that  one  thousand  big 
American  freight-cars,  set  up  in  Vladivostok, 
were  sent  empty  5500  miles  to  Petrograd,  there 
to  be  registered  and  receive  their  number,  and 
were  then  hauled  back  to  Vladivostok  to  be  loaded 


14  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

with  munitions  for  the  Russian  front.  I  am 
sceptical,  but  later,  in  Central  Asia,  I  chance  upon 
corroborative  evidence.  A  Moscow  wholesale 
rug-buyer  averred  that  eighteen  new  American 
locomotives  lay  idle  at  Merv  for  two  months, 
while  the  traffic  congestion  continued  acute  and 
the  whole  region  suffered,  simply  because  Petro- 
grad  had  not  yet  sent  the  numbers  by  which  these 
locomotives  should  be  officially  designated! 

Near  Irkutsk  are  great  military  prisons,  and  the 
station  platforms  are  gray  with  Austrians  who 
appear  to  enjoy  considerable  freedom.  Unlike 
Allied  prisoners  in  Germany,  what  they  have  suf- 
fered has  been  due  not  to  malice,  but  to  ineffici- 
ency and  graft.  Further  west  the  country  is  well 
cultivated  and  the  farms  recall  Idaho.  We  pass  a 
herd  of  350  grazing  cattle.  Here  is  a  village  of 
four  hundred  rude  weather-beaten  log-huts,  many 
of  them  sagging,  but  rising  grandly  over  all  is  a 
bright  brick  Orthodox  church,  its  green  domes 
making  a  fine  effect  against  the  sky.  What  a  con- 
trast! 

Beyond  Krasnoyarsk  the  straight-snath  scythe 
is  aswing,  and  haystacks  dot  the  uplands.  Carts 
have  replaced  wagons.  Against  nearly  every 
house  leans  a  great  pile  of  stove-wood.  Nobody 
is  to  be  seen  in  the  fields  or  engaged  in  mending 
the  road-bed,  but  boys,  women,  and  old  men. 
Then  for  a  while  cultivation  fades  out,  and  we 
traverse  stretches  of  primeval  forest. 

Attached  to  our  train  is  the  private  observation- 
car  of  an  able  and  honest  railway  official  who  is  in 


TWICE  ACROSS  SIBERIA  15 

charge  of  the  division  east  of  Irkutsk.  While 
chatting  with  the  family  I  notice  that  we  have 
come  to  a  station  and  that  either  side  of  us  is  a 
troop-train.  The  official  directs  his  daughter  to 
pull  down  the  blinds. 

"Why  do  you  do  that?"  I  ask. 
" Because,' '  she  replies,  "if  the  soldiers  see 
there  is  room  here,  some  of  them  will  force  their 
way  in,  instead  of  continuing  with  their  train,  or 
perhaps  they  will  throw  stones." 
"Is  there,  then,  no  authority?" 
"No,  there  is  no  longer  any  authority." 
Frequently  our  train  waits,  while  there  is  a 
big  pow-wow  between  officers  and  train-officials 
and  knots  of  soldiers  who  want  to  board  us.  The 
spokesman  of  the  soldiers  asks  why  the  rich 
should  monopolize  such  accommodations,  while 
the  men  who  are  returning  to  the  front  to  fight 
for  their  country  ride  on  a  slow  train,  packed  like 
sardines  in  third-class  cars.  The  officials  argue 
that  unless  the  through  passengers  get  what  they 
have  paid  for,  the  Trans-Siberian  line  will  soon 
cease  to  be  patronized  and  the  express  train  will 
have  to  be  taken  off.  Eleven  times  this  occurs, 
and  in  every  case  the  soldiers  are  persuaded  to 
wait  for  a  troop-train. 

A  homebound  Swedish  Red  Cross  officer,  who 
got  on  at  Krasnoyarsk,  observes  that  all  the  time 
authority  is  crumbling.  Soldiers  and  workmen 
make  demands  that  they  never  thought  of  making, 
three  months  ago.  He  is  bitter  with  the  autoc- 
racy for  keeping  the  masses  in  darkness,  for  now 


16  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

that  it  is  gone,  the  people  do  not  understand  the 
nature  of  liberty  nor  the  necessity  of  making  ad- 
justments by  law.  They  are  too  ignorant  to  per- 
ceive the  fallacies  of  the  agitators,  who  urge  them 
to  take  what  they  want  noiv.  The  people  wish  to 
do  only  what  is  just,  but  they  do  not  see  the  con- 
sequences of  each  ignoring  the  law  and  acting  on 
his  own  sense  of  justice. 

Owing  to  the  unwillingness  of  the  troops  to 
fight,  "udamye"  or  "hitting"  battalions  have 
been  formed  of  men  who  pledge  themselves  to  at- 
tack and  never  go  back.  They  wear  a  badge  on 
the  sleeve,  and  their  moral  superiority  reveals  it- 
self in  nobility  of  type  and  mien.  Some  who 
boarded  our  train  in  the  night  are  reproached 
the  next  morning  for  setting  a  bad  example  to 
other  soldiers  by  violating  regulations  which  do 
not  allow  them  to  ride  free,  save  on  trains  with 
third-class  accommodations.  They  are  convinced, 
and  all  buy  tickets  in  order  to  continue  on  the 
train. 

A  feature  of  the  railroad  stations  all  over  Rus- 
sia is  the  public  kipyatok,  or  boiler.  In  a  neat 
little  building  is  a  huge  caldron  over  a  brick  stove, 
and  when  thetrain  stops  there  is  a  great  rush  of 
people  with  tea-kettles  to  draw  boiling  water  from 
the  faucet  outside.  At  the  station-entrance  is  a 
cask  marked,  "boiled  water,"  and  often  the  warn- 
ing, "Do  not  drink  unboiled  water."  Every  pas- 
senger, down  to  the  humblest,  carries  his  own 
kettle,  tea,  and  sugar,  and  makes  tea  when  he 
likes.    Boiled  milk,  too,  is  in  high  favor,  and  the 


TWICE  ACROSS  SIBERIA  17 

countrywomen  rarely  have  enough  to  go  round. 

The  Urals  are  mountains  only  by  courtesy. 
Although  it  takes  eight  hours  to  cross  them,  we 
notice  no  cliffs,  gorges,  torrents,  abysses,  or  stiff 
grades.  Hardly  are  we  conscious  of  climbing. 
The  region,  however,  is  full  of  charm — beautiful 
pine-forests,  cabins  of  wood-cutters,  stacks  of 
shapely  logs  and  telegraph-poles,  flourishing 
gardens  in  tiny  clearings,  tilled  meadows  and 
wheat-fields,  and  neat  cottages  that  proclaim  self- 
respect. 

-In  North  Russia  cultivated  country  alternates 
with  forest.  For  hours  we  glide  through  slim 
pmes  that  yield  logs  straight  as  a  pencil  and  acres 
of  corcMd  firewood.  One  does  not  know  what 
firewood  is  till  he  has  seen  the  vast  supplies  pre- 
pared each  season  to  warm  the  six  millions  of 
people  in  Moscow  and  Petrograd  during  the  com- 
ing winter.  Of  a  sawmill  there  is  no  sign.  One 
sees  no  devastated  areas,  no  slashings,  no  evi- 
dences of  forest  fire.  Stretches  once  cut  over  are 
covered  now  with  young  timber  of  uniform  growth. 
Evidently  the  forest  has  been  used,  not  butchered 
as  we,  with  the  unrestraint  of  barbarians,  have 
butchered  our  glorious  native  woods. 

After  ten  days  we  roll  into  Petrograd — Petro- 
grad with  its  long  queues  before  every  provision- 
stoxre,  with  the  buildings  at  its  principal  street- 
corners  pitted  with  bullet-holes,  with  the  plate- 
glass  in  many  of  its  shop-windows  perforated  or 
shattered,  with  a  great  grave  of  the  martyrs  of 
the  revolution  hallowing  its  Field  of  Mars,  with 


18  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

the  women's  battalion  drilling  in  the  grounds  of 
the  Academy  of  Engineering,  with  university  stu- 
dents wearing  red  brassards  on  the  arm  function- 
ing as  police,  with  khaki-clad  hayseed  lads  from 
the  country  village  wandering  about  hand  in  hand 
in  pairs,  with  barges  threading  the  canals  and  dis- 
charging firewood  into  every  courtyard;  Petro- 
gr ad,  with  its  palaces  serving  as  military  hos- 
pitals, its  armored  cars  thundering  through  the 
streets  and  its  surging  Columns  of  marching  men. 

Five  months  later,  homeward  bound,  I  cross 
Russia  and  Siberia  in  the  reverse  direction.  In 
the  meantime  there  have  been  great  changes.  For 
five  weeks  the  Sovyets  have  been  masters  of  Rus- 
sia, and  the  proletarian  government  swings  a  fist 
such  as  the  Kerensky  ministry  never  knew. 
Hither  and  thither  hurry  armed  workmen,  the 
"red  guard,"  carrying  out  the  decrees  of  the 
"people's  Kommissars"  and  curbing  the  spirit 
of  anarchy.  Negotiations  are  under  way  at 
Brest-Litovsk,  and  the  Bolsheviki  expect  to  get 
a  peace  "without  annexations  or  indemnities." 

"The  war  is  over,"  said  to  me  Professor  Pok- 
rovsky,  head  of  the  Moscow  Sovyet,  on  December 
4;  "I  have  just  come  from  a  committee-meeting  in 
which  we  were  considering  how  to  convert  the 
munition-factories  into  producers  of  useful 
goods." 

In  great  numbers  the  soldiers  are  streaming 
away  from  the  front,  nominally  on  a  month's  fur- 
lough.    Troop-trains    are    being    despatched    to 


9 


TWICE  ACROSS  SIBERIA  21 

South  Russia,  to  the  Cossack  territory,  to  Siberia 
— wherever,  in  fact,  the  cadets  training  to  become 
officers,  the  "junkers,"  or  the  Cossacks  stand  up 
for  the  bourgeoisie  against  the  authority  of  the 
Sovyets. 

The  weekly  Trans-Siberian  express  rolls  out  of 
the  Nicholas  Station  an  hour  late,  because  a  troop- 
train  bound  for  Siberia  insists  on  leaving  ahead  of 
us  and  the  station-master  is  threatened  with 
death  if  he  lets  our  train  go  first.  We  leave  with 
none  but  ticket-holders  aboard,  but  at  the  first 
stop  the  train  is  flooded  with  soldiers  on  furlough, 
and  in  the  morning  we  find  the  corridor  crowded 
with  about  thirty  men  and  their  bags,  the  vesti- 
bules and  platforms  packed,  and  three  or  four 
men  in  every  toilet.  In  some  cases  they  fill  up 
the  coupe,  and  the  unfortunate  passenger  who 
has  paid  five  hundred  rubles  for  first-class  accom- 
modation to  the  Orient  is  obliged  to  sleep  sitting 
up  during  most  of  the  ensuing  fortnight.  For- 
tunately, although  he  may  object  to  the  word,  my 

comrade  G ,  an  American  who  speaks  Russian 

fluently,  is  prostrated  for  ten  days  by  a  sharp  at- 
tack of  lumbago,  and  the  boys  in  our  corridor, 
after  realizing  his  condition  cease  to  poke  inquisi- 
tive heads  into  our  coupe.  The  other  Americans 
on  the  train  fare  equally  well,  and  the  Interna- 
tional sleeping-car  at  the  rear  of  the  train,  being 
foreign-owned,  is  let  alone. 

Poor  fellows,  who  for  weeks  have  been  on  their 
feet  all  day,  stand  to  eat  their  bread  and  sausage 
and  sleep  crouched  in  bad  air,  with  never  a  chance 


22  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

to  wash,  change  their  clothes,  lie  down,  or  even 
stretch  out!  They  bear  their  misery  stoically, 
sing  every  evening  peasant  songs  in  a  minor  key, 
and  never  bicker  or  show  a  sign  of  becoming  short- 
tempered  under  the  strain.  In  quest  of  fresh  air, 
food,  or  hot  water,  I  have  often  to  squeeze  by 
them,  but  there  is  no  end  to  their  patience  in  lean- 
ing aside,  sitting  up,  or  lifting  themselves  out  of 
the  way.  By  politeness  and  small  gifts  of  cigar- 
ettes and  chocolate  we  reach  a  friendly  footing 
with  them,  and  after  the  first  two  days  they  will 
neither  intrude  upon  us  nor  allow  any  one  else  to 
do  so. 

Our  train  trails  the  troop-train,  and  on  the 
evening  of  the  second  day  loafs  into  Viatka 
twenty-four  hours  late.  While  we  wait  for  a  clear 
track  the  soldiers  become  suspicious  that  the  sta- 
tion-master intends  to  send  our  train  out  ahead 
of  theirs.  Finally  they  threaten  their  engineer 
with  guns,  and  oblige  him  to  pull  out  without 
orders.  It  happens  that  an  eastbound  freight- 
train  ahead  of  them  breaks  in  two  on  a  grade. 
Eight  loaded  cars  come  gliding  back  in  the  dark- 
ness, and  about  ten  miles  out  there  is  a  terrible 
collision.  Now  this  troop-train  consists  of  fifty 
or  sixty  box-cars,  each  fitted  up  with  three  sleep- 
ing-platforms in  either  end  and  warmed  by  a  red- 
hot  stove  in  the  middle.  The  shock  overturns  the 
stoves  and  jams  the  doors.  The  cars  catch  fire, 
and  four  hundred  and  one  soldiers  are  burned  to 
death.  A  few  of  those  in  the  upper  bunks  escape 
by  smashing  a  hole  through  the  roof  of  the  car. 


TWICE  ACROSS  SIBERIA  23 

A  day  later  we  pass  the  still-burning  wreck,  with 
the  bodies  lying  in  the  snow  and  the  uninjured 
going  about,  crossing  themselves  before  each  body 
and  then  removing  the  boots. 

Within  the  ten  years  1902-11,  there  were 
four  years  when  only  one  passenger  was  killed  in 
a  passenger-train  collision  on  the  railroads  of 
Russia,  and  one  year  when  not  one  life  was  thus 
lost.  During  this  time  rules  and  signals  were 
observed.  What  an  object  lesson  is  the  Viatka 
disaster  as  to  the  value  of  discipline  and  obedi- 
ence! 

While  we  lie  at  Viatka  red  guards  go  through 
our  train  and  turn  up  20,000  rubles  worth  of 
smuggled  opium.  As  our  restaurant-car  offers 
an  excellent  headquarters  for  them  during  future 
service  in  the  yards,  it  is  uncoupled  and  for  some 
days  the  five  or  six  hundred  people  on  our  train 
have  to  live  off  the  country.  At  meal-time  stops 
there  is  a  frantic  rush  for  the  buffet.  People 
struggle  five  deep  in  front  of  the  food-counter, 
and  the  luckier  emerge  with  meat-balls  in  one 
hand  and  a  plate  of  scalding  cabbage-soup  in  the 
other.  They  carry  their  spoil  to  a  table  and  con- 
sume it.  Sometimes  a  waiter  comes  around  col- 
lecting the  price  of  the  food,  taking  your  word  as 
to  what  you  have  had.  Half  the  time,  however,  I 
have  to  hunt  up  some  one  to  pay.  It  seems  to  be 
taken  for  granted  that  no  passenger  will  act  dis- 
honorably. 

Despite  the  scramble  for  food,  there  is  no 
squabbling.    The    marvellous    Russian    patience 


24  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

enables  each  to  content  himself  with  whatever 
luck  brings  him.  If  the  roast  fowls  are  all  gone 
before  you  reach  the  counter,  you  raid  the  booths 
outside  the  station  where  the  soldiers  buy  their 
edibles  of  country-women.  Sometimes  you  jubil- 
ate at  the  capture  of  sections  of  roast  goose,  but 
again  you  may  regain  your  coupe  with  nothing 
better  to  dine  on  than  a  chunk  of  boiled  beef- 
heart!  The  Russian,  with  his  sociable  nature, 
takes  a  lively  interest  in  what  happens  to  his  fel- 
low-man, so  when  I  am  trying  to  make  myself 
understood  at  a  buffet,  some  one  is  sure  to  come 
to  my  rescue  with  English  or  French.  Indeed, 
this  camaraderie  and  good  will  is  the  outstand- 
ing feature  of  my  twenty  thousand  miles  of  travel 
in  Russia. 

During  the  night  we  pass  the  westbound  ex- 
press, and  the  next  day  come  to  the  scene  of  a 
tragedy.  The  station-master  gave  this  express 
precedence  over  a  westbound  troop-train,  as  he 
was  bound  to  do,  so  the  enraged  soldiers  dragged 
him  out  of  his  office  and  held  his  head  upon  the 
rails  while  their  train  passed  over  him ! 

At  Ekaterinburg,  in  the  Urals,  another  troop- 
train  rolls  into  the  station  before  we  have  left,  and 
there  is  the  same  demand  that  we,  mere  bour- 
geoisie, whose  only  title  to  consideration  is  the 
money  we  have  paid,  be  sent  out  behind  the 
soldiers.  After  an  hour's  discussion  we  pull 
out  ahead.  But  further  along  this  same  train 
catches  us  again,  before  we  have  made  our  get- 
away, and  there  is  more  trouble.     Those  "com- 


TWICE  ACROSS  SIBERIA  25 

rades"  tell  the  station-master  that  if  he  does  not 
let  them  go  first,  they  will  kill  him,  but  our  "com- 
rades" notify  him  they  will  kill  him  if  he  does 
not  let  us  go  first.  Our  men  win,  and  we  realize 
that  their  presence  among  us  is  a  certain  protec- 
tion. 

Meanwhile  we  are  crawling  over  endless,  bleak, 
snow-covered  plains  in  a  cold  that  ranges  from 
28  to  58  degrees  below  zero,  while  the  pale,  wintry 
sun  climbs  scarcely  more  than  30  degrees  above  the 
horizon.  The  water  is  frozen  in  the  toilets;  the 
water-tanks  in  the  coupe  leak  and  are  unusable, 
and  for  ten  days  one  has  no  other  ablutions  than 
a  dampened  towel  affords.  Frequently  the  old 
women  who  run  the  kipyatdks  fail  to  have  the 
water  boiling  when  we  come  along,  or  the  supply 
is  insufficient  for  so  many  kettles.  The  "com- 
rades" in  the  vestibules  easily  beat  us  passengers 
to  the  hot  water  tank,  and  we  have  much  to  do  to 
keep  our  ears  from  freezing  while  waiting  in  line, 
with  forty  kettles  ahead  of  us  to  be  filled  from  one 
faucet.  Most  of  the  time  our  train  is  off  before 
the  last  kettle  is  full. 

In  midwinter  the  Siberian  landscape  presents 
a  strange  appearance.  Every  tree,  shrub,  weed, 
and  windlestraw  is  thick-studded  with  frost  cry- 
stals, until  it  stands  stiff  and  still,  as  if  sheathed 
in  armor.  The  least  twig  or  grass-blade  has  the 
thickness  of  a  man's  finger.  Snow-laden  trees 
show  dark  on  the  underside  of  the  boughs;  but 
here  the  frost  clings  all  about,  so  that  the  dark 
of  trunk  and  b~oughs  completely  disappears  and  the 


26  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

tree  stands  a  pale,  motionless  specter  of  itself. 
Then,  too,  snow-laden  boughs  cast  deep  shadows, 
so  that  near  its  base  the  wood  is  full  of  dusky 
caverns;  but  here  the  light  filters  down  evenly 
through  the  frost-rimed  twigs  until  you  get  a  wood 
without  suggestion  of  mystery  or  hiding-place. 
In  bright  sun  the  crystal  casing  takes  fire,  and 
every  standing  object  is  tipped  and  edged  with 
light,  like  the  halo  of  a  saint.  But  under  a  dull 
sky  or  at  twilight  you  behold  a  landscape  of  the 
spirit  world,  as  if  before  you  were  not  solid  trees, 
but  the  ghosts  of  dead  forests. 

As  we  proceed,  the  tension  grows.  Certain 
Russian  officers  on  the  train  have  had  brought  to 
their  attention  the  rule  abolishing  all  insignia  of 
military  rank  and  find  it  prudent  to  rip  the  chev- 
rons off  their  sleeves.  Officers  who  started  in 
uniform  don  plain  clothes.  Frequently  commit- 
tees of  soldiers  go  through  the  train,  looking  for 
weapons.  As  we  draw  near  Irkutsk  we  meet  re- 
ports that  the  city  is  in  flames  and  the  bridge  over 
the  river  has  been  destroyed.  After  a  long  stop 
four  miles  out,  we  rumble  into  the  station  and 
learn  that  fighting  has  been  in  progress  for  nine 
days,  but  that  a  twelve-hour  truce  is  in  force. 
Fifteen  hundred  young  men  in  the  military  school, 
with  the  aid  of  500  Cossacks,  have  been  battling 
with  2000  soldiers,  together  with  some  thousands 
of  armed  workmen.  Many  of  the  red  guard  have 
been  killed,  as  they  do  not  know  how  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  cover.  Many  houses  have  been  burned, 
and,  as  we  pull  out,  we  see  flames  on  the  other  side 


TWICE  ACROSS  SIBERIA  27 

of  the  river.  How  ghastly  that  hundreds  of  fam- 
ilies suddenly  find  themselves  homeless  in  the 
midst  of  a  Siberian  winter  because  there  is  a 
struggle  for  mastery  between  the  Sovyet  and  the 
municipal  government!  Some  well-to-do  bour- 
geois families,  who  for  days  have  been  fleeing 
from  cellar  to  cellar  as  house  after  house  is  burned, 
board  the  International  car  without  tickets  or 
money  and  are  cared  for  by  the  passengers. 

As  we  sit  safe  in  the  uninjured  railway  station 
and  sip  cabbage-soup,  we  feel  like  the  occupants 
of  a  box  at  the  theater.  Soldiers  and  refugees 
with  bundles  press  about  us.  Hundreds  lie  dead 
in  the  town,  and  many  homes  are  in  flames.  Ca- 
dets, red  guards,  and  escaped  convicts  from  the 
mines  stand  ready  to  leap  at  one  another  again 
when  the  truce  is  over  at  ten  o'clock  this  evening. 
Yet  we  are  allowed  to  enter  the  scene  in  the  later 
afternoon,  linger  for  two  hours,  and  proceed  on 
our  way  as  detached  and  irresponsible  spectators ! 

At  the  frontier  station  of  Manchuria  we  come 
again  in  contact  with  law  and  authority.  A  big 
sergeant  goes  through  the  train  and  in  each  car 
proclaims,  "All  soldiers  who  are  not  holders  of 
tickets  must  get  out. ' '  All  meekly  obey,  save  one 
soldier  who  declares  that  he  is  bound  for  Vladivo- 
stok, has  come  thus  far  on  this  train,  and  will  not 
budge.  The  sergeant  takes  him  by  the  collar  and 
ejects  him  with  emphasis.  On  the  express  of  the 
previous  week  it  was  Chinese  soldiers  with  fixed 
bayonets  who  cleared  the  cars.  For  the  first  time 
we    passengers    move    freely    about    the    train. 


28  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

Hitherto  to  work  back  to  our  friends  in  the  Inter- 
national car  was  a  half -hour's  task. 

At  the  crest  of  the  Great  Kinghan  Pass  inspec- 
tion of  the  train-brakes  shows  that  on  two  of  the 
cars  brake-shoes  are  missing.  The  engineer  tells 
the  conductor  that  the  brakes  on  the  other  cars 
must  be  examined  before  he  will  take  the  train 
down  the  long  grade.  The  conductor  holds  it  is 
unnecessary,  but  the  engineer  calls  attention  to 
the  rule.  Finally  the  conductor  says,  "Oh,  you 
know  it  's  no  use.  There  's  freedom  now!"  The 
engineer  insists  and  the  brakes  are  examined, 
but  what  a  side-light  on  the  current  idea  of  free- 
dom! 

On  the  fifteenth  day  we  roll  into  Harbin  six  days 
late,  and  at  sight  of  white  rolls  for  sale  on  the  sta- 
tion-platform begin  prudently  to  stock  up,  for  we 
cannot  bring  ourselves  to  realize  that  black  bread 
is  a  thing  of  the  past.  We  buy  sugar  and  go  about 
shamelessly  sucking  lumps  of  it,  as  if  it  were 
candy.  The  weather  is  forty  degrees  below  zero. 
Every  hole  or  rip  in  a  garment  is  rimmed  with 
frost  and  every  morning  beggars  are  found  frozen 
to  death.  Chinese  soldiers  are  everywhere,  for 
only  a  few  days  ago  Bolshevist  troops  made  an 
attempt  to  get  the  upper  hand  of  the  Russian  au- 
thorities. They  were  overpowered  and  shipped 
away  on  cattle-cars,  and  now  China  is  in  control 
of  Northern  Manchuria. 

On  the  Japanese  trains  through  Korea  and 
Japan  we  go  through  a  table  d'hote  breakfast  in 
the  diner,  from  fish  to  finger-bowls,   and  then 


TWICE  ACROSS  SIBERI  29 

order  another  breakfast  right  on  top  of  the  first. 
In  one  case  we  cleaned  out  the  car's  larder  en- 
tirely, and  the  diner  had  to  be  dropped.  Our 
spirits  rise  as  we  head  south  toward  warmth, 
order,  and  plenty,  while  the  Russians  with  us,  re- 
turning to  their  positions  in  the  United  States, 
are  jubilant  at  escaping  from  the  land  of  want 
and  worry.  One  of  our  party,  a  charming  Russian 
who  has  long  taught  chemistry  in  an  American 
university,  has  no  proper  passport,  and  we  are  all 
anxious  lest  he  be  turned  back.  It  is  a  breathless 
moment  for  us  when  the  officials  at  the  point  of 
emergence  from  Russian  authority  are  looking 
over  his  makeshift  document.  They  hand  it  back 
without  a  word,  and  thenceforward  the  festal 
spirit  reigns  among  us. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  VOLGA  AND  THE  CASPIAN 
TO  TIFLIS 

WHAT  a  magic  lurks  in  some  names !  Bok- 
hara and  Samaroand  are  as  iridescent  as 
peacock-plumes ;  Kazan  and  Astrakhan  ring  in  the 
imagination  like  distant  temple-bells;  Nijni  Nov- 
gorod is  as  aromatic  as  sandalwood.  No  doubt  it 
is  the  famous  Fair  that  exhales  this  aroma,  the 
Fair  that  was  wont  to  bring  together  goods  and 
traders  from  all  Russia  and  half  of  Asia.  This 
year,  owing  to  the  blight  of  the  war  on  Russian  in- 
dustry, at  least  half  of  the  thousands  of  booths 
were  never  opened,  and  those  that  opened  soon 
disposed  of  their  scanty  stock  and  put  up  the 
boards  again.  Demand  is  strong,  but  supply 
there  is  not.  Still,  in  the  empty  echoing  streets 
of  the  Fair  one  comes  upon  Persian  buyers, 
Chinese  traders  from  Cashgar,  and  Khivan 
merchants  in  Jchaldt,  a  kind  of  glorified  bathrobe, 
and  in  shaggy  doughnut-shaped  sheepskin  hats. 

On  level  bluffs  three  hundred  feet  above  the 
river  Nijni  Novgorod,  the  "lower  new  town," 
with  her  gleaming  cupolas,  her  green,  blue,  and 
golden  domes,  shines  like  the  heavenly  city  of  the 
Book  of  Revelation.  The  domes  and  bell-towers 
of   a  Russian  city   decorate   it  more   than   the 

30 


THE  VOLGA  31 

steeples  of  our  cities,  although  there  is,  perhaps, 
nothing  in  Russian  church-architecture  so  beauti- 
ful as  certain  square  towers  our  churches  copy 
from  the  old  English  colleges.  Like  Moscow, 
Nijni  has  her  Kreml,  or  citadel,  enclosed  by  bat- 
tlemented  walls,  strengthened  at  the  corners  by 
fighting-towers  and  entered  through  deep-arched 
gateways.  The  falling  of  patches  of  the  ancient 
plaster  from  these  walls,  exposing  the  red  brick 
underneath,  gives  them  a  beautiful  time-mellowed 
tint.  As  always  in  these  Russian  Kremls,  the 
most  conspicuous  structures  are  the  churches  and 
shrines  which,  as  palladia  of  "Holy  Russia,'' 
must  at  all  hazards  be  made  safe  from  the  des- 
ecrating hands  of  the  Moslem  enemy. 

Nijni  has  many  industrial  plants,  one  of  which 
employs  twenty-five  thousand  men.  A  talk  I  have 
with  a  capitalist  who  builds  and  repairs  Volga 
freight-boats  throws  light  on  why,  despite  her 
factories,  Russia  is  so  bare  of  the  wares  that  tempt 
the  peasant  to  part  with  his  grain  to  feed  the 
cities.  At  the  outset  of  the  war  the  Government, 
not  forecasting  a  long  struggle,  mobilized  entirely 
too  many  factories  for  the  production  of  war  ma- 
terial. Railway  repair-shops  were  set  to  making 
cannon,  with  the  result  that  there  is  now  an  acute 
shortage  of  rolling-stock.  Under  protest,  this 
man  felt  obliged  to  turn  a  part  of  his  force  to  mak- 
ing ("very  badly")  1500  seventy-five-millimeter 
field  guns,  the  consequence  being  that  many  Volga 
boats  are  laid  up,  because  he  had  not  the  force  to 
make  repairs  as  fast  as  they  were  called  for. 


32  KUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

Shortly  after  the  revolution  began  the  working 
day  in  his  works  was  reduced  from  9y2  hours  to 
8  hours.  At  first  the  men  turned  out  as  much  in 
the  short  day  as  they  had  in  the  long  day;  but 
soon  productivity  fell  off  rapidly,  until  now,  in 
September,  the  output  is  only  half  of  what  it  was. 
He  shows  me  an  elaborate  printed  agreement  be- 
tween the  ship-owners  of  the  Volga  basin  and  their 
workmen.  It  was  drawn  up  in  Petrograd  be- 
tween representatives  of  the  contending  interests 
and  the  Minister  of  Labor.  The  minister,  being 
a  socialist,  sided  with  labor,  so  that  the  agreement 
is  "very  bad  for  us  ship-owners. "  Not  only  are 
the  wages  of  110  rubles  a  month  "very  high,"  but 
they  are  called  upon  to  pay  the  workmen  right 
through  the  winter,  when  for  four  or  five  months 
the  river  is  sealetl  by  ice  and  there  is  little  to  do. 
A  third  of  the  men,  perhaps,  may  be  kept  busy 
refitting  and  repairing  the  cargo-boats,  but  the 
rest  will  remain  idle,  yet  receive  wages. 

"How  have  these  men  got  through  the  winter 
without  wages  hitherto?"  I  inquire. 

"Oh,  they  Ve  lived  on  their  savings,  or  else 
gone  back  to  their  villages  and  worked  in  the  vil- 
lage indoor  winter  industries." 

Up  the  Volga  a  few  miles  lies  Sormova,  an  in- 
dustrial town  as  new  looking  as  Oklahoma  City, 
full  of  log-cottages  with  ornamental  scroll-work 
about  the  windows,  and  at  each  window  curtains 
and  flowers.  The  men  who  are  not  elderly  are 
poor  in  physique,  for  all  the  big  hale  fellows  are 


I 

c 
o 

— 

35 


Volga  dredge 


-•i 


• 


■  Saratof 


THE  VOLGA  35 

in  the  army.  On  the  most  conservative  estimate 
that  I  hear,  the  war  has  cost  Russia  in  killed, 
wounded,  and  missing  five  million  men.  The 
women  of  Sormova,  all  of  whom  go  about  with  a 
shawl  on  the  head,  are  very  plain  of  feature,  but 
their  faces  express  goodness.  On  either  side  of 
a  very  broad  street  are  two  rows  of  young  trees, 
each  protected  by  its  box.  Across  the  street  is  a 
huge  sign : '  *  Citizens  of  Sormova,  take  care  of  the 
young  trees  in  this  Liberty  Allee.  Protect  them, 
water  them,  teach  your  children  to  love  them  and 
to  love  everything  in  nature."  "We  learn  that 
early  in  the  spring  the  citizens  went  in  groups  to 
the  woods,  dug  up  young  trees,  and  planted  them 
here  to  commemorate  the  revolution. 

We  come  upon  a  recreation  center,  with  garden, 
outdoor  stage,  motion-picture  theater,  library,  and 
refectory,  established  in  the  revolutionary  year 
1905  by  a  local  temperance  society  that  was  try- 
ing to  win  the  people  from  vodka.  Later  this  so- 
ciety led  in  inducing  the  people  of  Sormova  to  pe- 
tition the  Minister  of  Finance  to  remove  all  his 
vodka  shops  from  the  town.  The  petition  was 
granted  and,  two  months  before  the  Tsar's  ukase 
abolishing  vodka  for  the  duration  of  the  war,  Sor- 
mova was  dry.  There  were  other  towns,  too, 
which  by  petition  had  induced  the  Government  to 
take  out  the  dispensaries.  These  local  "dry" 
movements  owed  nothing  to  the  employers  of  la- 
bor, who  in  some  cases  actually  opposed  them. 
The  women,  on  the  other  hand,  played  an  impor- 
tant role,  although  they  never  formed  themselves 


36  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

into  a  separate  organization.  The  working-class 
leaders  we  meet  think  that  if  vodka  gets  back  into 
the  town,  a  majority  of  the  working-men  will  still 
abstain. 

Kazan,  once  the  seat  of  a  Khan,  and  now  a  center 
of  Mohammedan  culture,  with  its  mosques,  its 
" Tatar  tower,"  its  bazaar,  and  its  thirty  thou- 
sand Tatar  population,  introduces  one  to  the 
problem  of  race  heterogeneity  with  which  Russian 
autocracy  and  orthodoxy  have  had  to  wrestle. 
About  the  Volga  and  on  to  the  Urals  there  dwells 
a  medley  of  races.  All  down  the  river  the  freight 
handlers  on  the  piers  are  Tatar,  and  their  Turk- 
ish aspect  is  startling.  Nose,  chin,  eyes,  hair — > 
all  agree  with  one's  mental  image  of  the  Turk. 
The  little  packing-cradle  these  Mussulman  porters 
bear  on  the  back,  and  on  which  they  rest  the  in- 
credibly heavy  boxes  they  carry,  is  the  same  as 
that  worn  by  the  hamals  of  Constantinople. 

Besides  the  Tatars  are  Finnish  tribes  which,  un- 
like the  Finns  of  Finland,  have  not  been  western- 
ized by  mixing  with  the  Scandinavians.  In  hair, 
complexion,  features,  and  especially  in  eye-slant 
they  give  proof  of  their  Mongol  origin.  These 
Chuvashes,  Mordvins,  Cheremisses,  and  Votyaks 
differ  greatly  from  one  another  in  advancement. 
Although  forced  to  become  nominal  Christians 
and  to  worship  in  the  Russian  Orthodox  Church, 
many  of  them  are  heathens  at  heart,  believe  in 
sacred  groves  and  sacred  trees,  and  secretly  prac- 
tice old  heathenish  rites.  Not  long  ago  a  girl 
was  sacrificed  in  one  of  these  orgies.    Some  of 


THE  VOLGA  37 

the  clergy  anticipate  that  under  the  new  regime 
of  complete  religious  liberty  this  heathen  vein 
will  come  to  the  surface  again. 

In  the  Ethnological  Museum  at  Petrograd  is  a 
wonderful  exhibit  of  the  wide  variety  of  races 
and  tribes  that  enter  into  the  population  of  the  em- 
pire. For  every  province  there  are  life-size  wax 
figures,  representing  men  and  women  in  the  dis- 
tinctive garb  and  surrounded  by  the  native  fabrics, 
utensils,  implements,  and  art  products  of  that 
region.  One  is  struck  at  once  with  the  great 
beauty  and  richness  of  the  costumes,  embroideries, 
and  house-gear  from  the  northern  provinces  of 
Eussia.  It  seems  as  if,  in  the  lands  too  cold  and 
infertile  to  invite  invasion,  the  arts  profited  by 
a  long  quiet  development,  while  in  the  rich,  tempt- 
ing, accessible  South  they  had  again  and  again 
been  disturbed  and  checked.  Now  these  northern 
arts  are  Finnish,  and  may  represent  a  very  ancient 
culture.  Some  doubt  if  the  late-coming  Slavs 
would  have  dominated  these  Finns,  but  for  the 
fact  that  the  Finns,  dispersed  through  a  vast  for- 
est region,  never  gained  the  political  cohesion 
needed  for  successful  resistance. 

Near  the  Volga,  not  far  below  Kazan,  are  the 
ruins,  known  as  "Bulgari,"  of  a  city  of  at  least 
150,000  inhabitants  which  was  occupied  by  the 
Bulgars  from  the  eighth  century  until  the  four- 
teenth, when  it  was  wiped  out  by  Tamerlane. 
Among  the  relics  of  this  settlement,  in  the  cabinets 
of  the  University  of  Kazan,  one  is  astounded  to 
come  upon  Armenian,  Chinese,  Finnish,  Venetian, 


38  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

Genoese,  Arabic,  Persian,  and  Byzantine  influ- 
ences. What  far  percolation  of  art  designs  and 
ideas!  But  these  Bulgars,  relatives  of  the  Bul- 
garians of  to-day,  are  not  Slavic  at  all,  but  Fin- 
nic, i.  e.,  Mongolian.  Recently  a  professor  from 
Sophia,  at  sight  of  the  Chuvash  Finns,  exclaimed, 
"Why,  they  are  just  Bulgarians!" 

In  a  string  of  settlements  along  the  Lower 
Volga  for  three  hundred  miles  are  nearly  three 
quarters  of  a  million  colonists  descended  from 
Germans  brought  in  under  Catherine  II  a  century 
and  a  half  ago.  Counting  in  similar  colonists  in 
Volhynia,  about  Odessa  and  Rostov,  and  in  the 
Caucasus,  there  are  in  Russia  between  two  and 
three  million  Russians  of  German  colonist  ex- 
traction. Years  ago  the  Pan-German  agents  came 
among  them,  reminded  them  that  they  were  Ger- 
mans and  not  Slavs,  told  them  that  the  Kaiser  was 
interested  in  them,  and  induced  them  to  send  their 
brightest  young  men  to  German  universities. 
When  the  war  broke  out  this  virus  produced  re- 
sults that  caused  these  German  elements  to  be- 
come suspect  by  the  Russian  Government.  A 
ruthless  "liquidation"  law  was  applied,  first  to 
the  German-Russians  of  Volhynia,  and  then  to 
the  South  Russian  and  Caucasus  Germans.  This 
law  was  about  to  be  applied  to  the  Volga  colonists 
when  the  revolution  came.  After  long  watching 
the  shadow  creeping  inexorably  in  their  direction, 
these  colonists  have  good  cause  to  love  the  revolu- 
tion that  saved  them. 

The  "liquidation"  law  aimed  to  uproot  whole 


w^mmngymi* 


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Volga  voyagers 


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--iiJIrjIJi 


i 


'iiiiiiiiiii  i 


Government  grain  elevator,  Samara 


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THE  VOLGA  41 

populations  of  German  ancestry  and  plant  them  in 
Siberia,  where  they  could  give  no  aid  to  the  na- 
tional enemy.  The  prosperous  German-Russians 
about  Odessa  were  notified  that  by  a  certain  date 
they  would  be  transported  to  Siberia.  They  be- 
gan at  once  to  sell  off  their  goods,  but  were 
abruptly  stopped.  No,  they  could  dispose  of  their 
property  only  to  the  State  Bank,  which  took  it  at 
a  ridiculously  low  valuation — say,  a  tenth — and 
gave  them  in  payment  a  paper  entitling  them  to 
so  many  rubles  after  tweny-five  years.  This 
paper  could  not  be  negotiated ;  to  be  valid  it  must 
be  presented  by  the  colonist  to  whom  it  was  given 
or  by  his  heir.  The  farms  of  these  colonists  were 
handed  over  to  Chevaliers  of  St.  George,  i.  e., 
Russian  soldiers  distinguished  for  valor,  and  each 
must  leave  on  his  place  enough  grain  and  other 
supplies  to  feed  his  supplanter  until  the  next  har- 
vest. Thus,  at  one  stroke,  farmers  who  by  a  life- 
time of  labor  and  thrift  had  made  themselves  com- 
fortable were  reduced  to  beggary.  The  way  to  Si- 
beria, I  am  told  by  a  German  pastor  of  Tiflis,  who 
himself  was  exiled  to  Siberia  without  charges  or 
trial,  is  lined  with  the  graves  of  thousands  of  Ger- 
man-Russians who  perished  of  hunger,  cold,  sick- 
ness, anxiety,  and  grief. 

The  bulk  of  the  German  colonists,  he  insists,  had 
become  quite  unconscious  of  Germany.  They 
clung  to  the  German  culture  they  brought  in  with 
them,  but  identified  themselves  with  Russia.  They 
were  interested  only  in  their  private  life,  and  gave 
no  attention  to  politics.     They  were  not  attracted 


42  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

by  the  ideas  and  schemes  of  modern,  imperialist, 
militarist  Germany.  The  Pan-German  ideas  did 
not  win  them. 

"But,"  he  adds,  "since  by  cruel  persecutions 
they  have  been  isolated  from  other  Russians,  since 
they  are  called  'Germans'  and  accused  of  being 
German  spies,  since  their  young  men  are  not  al- 
lowed to  become  officers  and  are  not  trusted  on  the 
German  front,  but  only  on  the  Turkish  front,  a 
German  consciousness  has  been  called  into  life  in 
the  hearts  of  these  colonists  and  they  take  notice 
of  the  fact  that  there  is  a  mighty  Germany  ready 
to  stand  up  for  Germans  everywhere." 

Saratof,  seen  in  its  amphitheater  of  hills,  owes 
much  to  the  lofty  domes  and  towers  of  its  many 
churches.  So  much  green  and  gold  is  a  feast  to 
the  eye.  Its  principal  streets  boast  sidewalks 
twenty  feet  wide,  and  shortly  before  the  war  some 
very  handsome  public  buildings  went  up,  among 
them  a  public  market  five  hundred  feet  long,  with 
six  rows  of  stalls.  Back  toward  the  base  of  the 
hills,  however,  is  a  great  area  built  up  with  dingy 
shanties.  In  none  of  our  important  cities  is  the 
working-class  so  poorly  housed.  One  is  struck, 
too,  by  the  slight  use  of  trees  and  grass,  in  com- 
parison with  American  cities  of  like  size,  say,  St. 
Paul  or  Denver.  There  is  but  one  small  park, 
while  lawns  and  parked  streets  are  not  to  be  seen. 
The  Russians  seem  not  to  realize  the  role  of 
greenery,  porches,  and  paint  in  making  a  home, 
and  their  small  development  of  public  property 


THE  VOLGA  43 

enjoyable  to  all  reflects  class  control  of  municipal 
affairs. 

That  the  common  man  has  been  a  political  ci- 
pher appears  in  the  management  of  public  of- 
fices. In  the  building  of  the  provincial  Zemstvo 
I  fall  to  talking  with  a  German  "colonist"  who 
for  three  days  has  been  sitting  in  the  corridor, 
vainly  seeking  to  obtain  a  permit  to  export  a  few 
poods  of  butter  to  Samara.  The  official  whose 
signature  he  needs  has  not  been  keeping  office 
hours.  "Keine  Ordnung  hier,"  says  the  poor  fel- 
low sadly,  and  he  is  right.  The  numerous  offices 
in  this  building  have  no  legends  indicating  what 
they  are,  nor  even  numbers  or  letters  by  which 
they  may  be  distinguished.  There  is  no  room- 
directory  at  the  entrance  nor  a  door-man  to  direct 
the  citizen  to  the  office  he  seeks.  Hence,  people 
wandering  about  in  utter  bewilderment  accost  me, 
asking,  "Where  is  the  Chancellery?"  "Where 
can  I  find  the  Chairman  of  the  Food  Commis- 
sion1?" None  but  a  voteless  public  would  toler- 
ate such  confusion  and  waste  of  time  at  the  hands 
of  their  officials. 

The  lower  Volga  takes  us  among  barren  salt 
steppes,  dotted  with  salt-ponds,  relics  of  the  re- 
treating Caspian,  and  sparsely  populated  by  no- 
mad Kirghiz  and  Kalmucks.  The  dessication  go- 
ing on  in  this  region  is  but  a  part  of  the  secular 
dessication  which  has  long  held  Central  Asia  in  its 
grasp  and  which  has  been  such  a  mighty  history- 
maker.    Nearing  Astrakhan  we  see  herds  of  graz- 


44  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

ing  camels,  clusters  of  kibltkas,  or  domelike,  felt 
tents,  and  a  Buddhist  temple  surrounded  by  Kal- 
mucks, whose  ultra-Mongoloid  features  make  them 
certainly  the  homeliest  of  mortals.  Eeviewing  the 
diversity  of  types  along  the  Volga  artery,  one  real- 
izes what  a  blessing  is  a  central  government  that 
enforces  peace  among  intermingled  elements  hav- 
ing so  little  in  common.  If  those  who  cry  down 
external  authority  and  demand  local  independ- 
ence had  their  way  in  this  Volga  basin,  the  jux- 
taposed races  and  faiths  would  soon  be  scratching 
out  one  another's  eyes  and  the  great  river  would 
cease  to  be  a  safe,  continuous  highway  for  popu- 
lations two  thousand  miles  apart. 

As  one  follows  this  Mississippi  from  its  St. 
Paul  to  its  New  Orleans,  it  becomes  plain  that  the 
key  to  the  late  arrival  of  the  Russians  at  the  ban- 
quet of  the  white  race  is  the  pressure  upon  them 
from  the  Asiatic  nomads.  For  a  period  as  long 
as  the  life  history  of  our  own  State  of  Pennsyl- 
vania they  were  bound  under  the  Mongol  yoke, 
and  then  for  centuries  they  were  confined  to  the 
northern,  wooded,  and  less  fertile  part  of  Russia 
by  the  fact  that  the  treeless  steppes  lay  open  to 
the  forays  of  the  Tatar  horsemen.  Thus,  until  the 
eighteenth  century  they  were  kept  from  settling 
freely  in  the  famous  " black-soil"  belt,  the  great- 
est grain-growing  area  in  the  world,  which  finds 
its  only  fellow  in  the  waxy,  black  soil  of  Texas. 
It  is  as  if  our  ancestors  had  been  confined  to  New 
England,  Quebec,  Ontario,  and  Labrador,  while  the 
fertile  valleys  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Mississippi  re- 


THE  VOLGA  45 

mained  the  grazing-grounds  of  fierce  nomads  well- 
ing up  from  crowded  regions  in  Mexico  and  the 
Southwest. 

In  the  autumn  the  Volga  is  by  no  means  a  tur- 
bid stream.  It  is  as  clear,  indeed,  as  the  upper 
Mississippi.  We  pass  many  towed  cargo-boats, 
nearly  awash  with  their  load.  Eafts  of  logs  float 
down,  each  with  a  hut  and  a  squad  of  men  who 
work  with  poles  to  keep  the  raft  off  the  buoys  and 
bars.  The  villages  we  pass  lie  squat  and  wide, 
like  so  many  gray  lichens.  The  low,  thatched 
huts,  unrelieved  by  grass  or  flowers  or  shade,  have 
a  cheerless  aspect.  Rural  Russia  makes  one 
melancholy ;  it  is  so  destitute  of  homes.  No  won- 
der the  peasants  took  to  vodka,  which  offered  the 
quickest  exit  from  these  huddles  of  mean  habita- 
tions. Not  a  little  of  the  depressing  look  of  a 
Russian  hamlet,  in  contrast  with  an  American 
hamlet,  comes  from  a  lack  of  paint,  for  not  one 
house  in  twenty  is  painted. 

The  high,  right  bank  of  the  river  is  gashed  and 
gouged  by  ravines,  some  of  which,  coming  down 
through  villages,  are  certainly  of  recent  origin  and 
indicate  a  too  rapid  run-off  of  water  since  the 
country  was  stripped  of  its  natural  cover.  The 
great  range  of  level  between  high  water  and  low, 
as  well  as  the  huge  sand-bars  that  oblige  the  steam- 
boats to  pick  their  way  gingerly,  tell  the  same  tale. 
Upon  Russia,  as  upon  all  young  countries,  the  con- 
servation problem  has  stolen  like  a  thief  in  the 
night.  Formerly  the  owner  of  a  forest  was  not 
allowed  to  cut  more  than  a  thirtieth  of  it  in  a  year, 


46  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

thirty  years  being  its  average  period  for  repro- 
duction. But  of  late  this  law  has  become  a  dead 
letter  because  of  shortage  of  fuel,  owing  to  con- 
gestion of  railway  traffic  and  to  the  fact  that  this 
season  the  peasants  will  not  allow  the  landowner 
to  take  the  ordinary  cut  from  his  estate.  They 
expect  to  have  the  estates  themselves  soon,  so  the 
more  he  takes,  the  less  there  will  be  for  them. 
Of  the  industries  of  the  Urals,  many  have  had  to 
close  down  on  account  of  lack  of  fuel. 

Before  emancipation  the  woods  of  Russia  were 
cherished,  for  the  nobles  hunted  in  them,  and  loved 
them.  But  when,  after  the  abolition  of  serfdom, 
nearly  half  of  the  area  of  the  estates  came  into 
the  hands  of  the  former  serfs,  they  recklessly 
felled  the  trees,  either  for  the  sake  of  fuel  or  in 
order  to  eke  out  their  plow-land.  Already  the 
natural  consequences  of  forest  destruction  have 
made  their  appearance.  One  hears  how,  after 
loss  of  tree-cover,  erosion  has  created  veritable 
canons  in  some  parts  of  the  " black  soil"  region. 
The  water  penetrates  the  underlying  chalk  and 
dissolves  it,  forming  underground  passages  and 
caverns ;  then  the  sand  above  the  chalk  is  carried 
off;  lastly  the  earth  sinks  and  the  tough  gummy 
mould  is  washed  away.  In  the  end  the  country  be- 
comes a  fearful  net  of  impassable  ravines. 

At  Kazan  a  little  river,  the  Kazanka,  is  carry- 
ing down  so  much  soil  that  in  the  Volga  opposite 
its  mouth  a  bar  has  formed  which  may  easily 
shift  in  front  of  the  boat-piers  and  ruin  property 
worth  millions.    The  Volga  is  getting  to  be  so 


THE  VOLGA  47 

clogged  that  dredges  have  to  work  constantly  on 
the  bars,  in  order  to  keep  the  channel  free  for 
navigation.  Dredging,  of  course,  is  a  poor  cure 
for  silting  up,  and  some  think  it  will  be  necessary 
to  intensify  the  scouring  action  of  the  current  by 
wing-dams,  such  as  are  frequent  in  the  rivers  of 
western  Europe.  It  is  pointed  out,  however,  that 
even  now,  in  high  water,  boats  have  to  do  their 
utmost  to  get  up  stream,  so  that,  if  the  current 
were  artificially  quickened,  up-river  traffic  might 
become  impossible  at  times.  The  Dnyepr,  too,  has 
become  a  problem.  Since  the  extensive  tree-fell- 
ing in  the  Minsk  swamps  which  feed  the  Dnyepr, 
its  flow  tends  to  extremes.  At  Kiev  in  late  sum- 
mer it  sometimes  has  too  little  water  for  naviga- 
tion. 

The  farmers  of  the  "black-soil"  belt  never  ma- 
nure their  fields,  for  they  imagine  that  the  layer 
of  humus,  averaging  from  a  foot  and  a  half  to  five 
feet  in  thickness,  which  has  accumulated  through 
the  ages  from  the  slow  decomposition  of  steppe 
grasses,  is  inexhaustible  in  fertility.  But  the  peo- 
ple are  fond  of  nibbling  sun-flower  seeds,  as  the 
Chinese  eat  watermelon  seeds,  and  in  places  the 
growing  of  sunflowers  to  meet  this  demand  has 
reduced  the  black  soil  to  the  barrenness  of  sand. 
It  is  said  that  the  Little  Russians,  who  settled 
along  the  Ussuri  in  Eastern  Siberia,  treated  the 
foot  or  so  of  black  mould  there  just  as  they  did  the 
soil  back  home,  with  the  result  that  a  few  years  of 
continuous  cropping  ruined  it. 

The  Russian  farmer,  like  the  American  farmer 


48  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

until  recently,  has  been  a  poor  soil-conserver,  for 
both  of  them  inherited  the  habits  that  go  with  the 
settlement  of  virgin  earth.  The  German  farmers 
along  the  Lower  Volga,  who  brought  with  them  a 
superior  agricultural  tradition,  as  did  the  Ger- 
mans who  came  two  hundred  years  ago  to  Penn- 
sylvania, are  justly  horrified  when  the  Russian 
tumbles  manure  from  his  stables  into  the  river, 
as  if  it  were  refuse.  Even  worse,  however,  are 
the  practices  of  the  nomads,  who  have  but  re- 
cently taken  to  tillage  and  are  green  at  the  farm- 
ing game.  They  let  the  manure  accumulate  waist- 
deep  in  their  cow-yards,  and  it  never  occurs  to 
them  that  their  fields  will  not  go  on  yielding  for- 
ever. 

Another  conservation  problem  arises  in  con- 
nection with  the  great  fisheries  of  the  Lower 
Volga.  At  the  chief  points  on  the  river  each  navi- 
gation company  has  its  naptha  barge,  from  which 
is  transfused  into  the  steamboats  the  fluid  from 
Baku  which  makes  their  heart  beat.  But  not  long 
ago  it  was  discovered  that  the  pollution  of  the 
river  by  this  fuel  is  killing  the  fish  at  an  alarming 
rate.  Of  late  the  bargemen  are  careful  not  to  be 
sloppy  in  handling  the  pipes  and  troughs  by  which 
naptha  is  passed  to  the  steamer  alongside. 
Nevertheless,  there  are  always  great  black 
patches  of  oil  floating  away  from  the  barges,  and 
the  problem  still  awaits  solution. 

As  we  leave  Astrakhan  the  city  recalls  Venice, 


Chain  mail  is  still  worn  in  Georgian  historical  pageants 


Holidaying  at  Mtzchet 


tt 


THE  VOLGA  51 

sitting  like  a  swan  on  the  water.  Nearing  the 
Caspian,  pelicans  go  whooshing  overhead,  while 
clouds  of  fish-ducks  fill  the  air.  After  a  night 
and  a  day  on  the  bright  green  water  of  the  Cas- 
pian, we  see  in  the  distance  what  appears  to  be  a 
water-spout,  but  on  coming  nearer  resembles  a 
belching  volcano.  It  turns  out  to  be  the  smoke 
from  a  colossal  petroleum  fire  on  the  water-front 
of  Baku.  At  times  the  column  is  lit  by  immense 
gushes  of  flame,  shooting  hundreds  of  feet  into  the 
air.  The  fire  has  been  burning  twenty-four  hours, 
and  it  remains  active  for  two  days  longer. 
Eleven  great  petroleum  tanks,  representing  mil- 
lions of  dollars,  go  up  in  smoke.  For  a  while  the 
spread  of  the  burning  oil  from  the  exploding  tanks 
threatens  everything  in  and  near  the  harbor,  but 
fire-boats  meet  the  liquid  blaze  with  powerful 
streams  of  water  and  drive  it  back. 

The  Caucasus  chain  divides  Asia  from  Europe, 
and  south  of  it  you  are  in  the  real  East.  One  who 
has  revelled  in  the  literature  of  it,  from  the  Bible 
to  Vambery  and  Burton,  is  thrilled  at  recognizing 
all  the  characteristic  features  of  the  Orient — 
shaven  heads  arid  mustachios,  instead  of  the  full 
beard ;  the  middle  girt  by  the  gay  sash  or  the  fancy 
ornamental  belt;  brimless  caps  of  lambskin  and 
huge  black  mantles  of  shaggy  felt;  embroidered 
heel-less  slippers  or  soft-soled  boots;  baggy  cot- 
ton trousers  tied  in  at  the  ankles ;  strings  of  beads 
for  the  man's  idle  hands  to  play  with;  merchants 
sitting  cross-legged  on  beautiful  hand-woven  rugs ; 
barefoot,  veiled  women  and  women  draped  with 


52  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

festoons  of  coins ;  finger-nails  and  grizzling  beards 
stained  with  henna ;  shepherds  who  look  as  if  they 
live  on  locusts  and  wild  honey;  importunate  beg- 
gars with  the  air  of  having  an  assured  social  posi- 
tion ;  diminutive  donkeys,  biblical  asses,  camels  of 
the  desert  and  slow-moving  oxen  at  the  plow; 
piles  of  pomegranates  and  long,  sweet  grapes; 
sacks  of  goatskin,  with  the  hair  turned  inside,  dis- 
tended with  wine  or  olive  oil;  draft  animals  be- 
decked about  the  head  with  beads  to  avert  the  evil 
eye;  heifers  treading  out  the  grain  on  threshing 
floors ;  bricks  of  mud  and  straw  drying  in  the  sun ; 
white- washed  mud  huts  with  flat  roofs;  domed 
marabouts;  Moorish  architecture;  deep,  dry  gul- 
lies, treeless  hills  with  eroded  slopes,  and  over  all 
an  intensely  blue  sky. 


CHAPTER  III 
IMPRESSIONS  FROM  THE  CAUCASUS 

TIFLIS,  city  of  more  than  a  third  of  a  million, 
where  Georgians,  Russians,  German  colon- 
ists, Armenians,  Persians,  and  Tatars  peacefully 
commingle,  is  less  hit  by  the  war  and  shows  more 
vitality  and  recuperative  power  than  any  other 
city  I  visited.  The  presence  of  sixty  thousand 
Armenians  explains,  perhaps,  why  one  sees  no 
Jews.  Besides  Arabs,  I  came  upon  a  band  of 
Khivans,  as  wild  looking  as  Touaregs,  and  one 
Chinaman.  In  the  streets  the  eye  is  gladdened 
by  the  sight  of  long-haired,  bearded,  Russian 
priests  in  dingy,  purple  cassocks,  Tatar  mollahs 
in  flowing  gowns,  wearing  a  white  or  green  turban, 
Tatar  traders  in  blue  tunics  and  white  skull-caps, 
mountain  shepherds  as  tall  and  raw-boned  as 
Scotch  Highlanders,  high  carts  {arbas)  drawn  by 
Indian  buffaloes  with  massive  back-sweeping 
horns,  tethered  goats,  fat-tailed  sheep,  leashed  gos- 
hawks, and  Lilliputian  donkeys  lost  under  their 
load.  The  bazaars,  with  their  color,  their  stir, 
their  intimacy,  and  their  revelation  of  the  cunning 
of  armorer  and  silversmith,  saddler  and  furrier, 
are  a  perpetual  well-spring  of  delight.  Tiflis  is  at 
the  cross-roads  where  meet  all  the  chief  peoples 
and  products  of  the  Levant.    In  the  shops  the 

53 


54  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

various  weaves  of  carpets  from  the  Caucasus — 
Kuba,  Karabagh,  and  Daghestan — vie  with  Pen- 
deh,  Beloochi,  Tekke,  Kermanshah,  and  Shiraz 
rugs.  When  a  man  has  a  rug  he  particularly 
wants  to  sell,  he  throws  it  over  his  shoulder  and 
strolls  through  the  bazaar,  not  crying  his  ware, 
but  sauntering  up  to  any  casual  knot  of  men  with 
a  degage  air,  letting  them  inspect  it  if  they  like  af- 
ter shaking  it  open  on  the  cobblestones. 

The  Georgians  are  the  handsomest  branch  of 
the  white  race,  and  so,  from  our  view  point,  are 
the  finest-looking  people  in  the  world.  The  nose 
is  thin  and  straight,  with  high-cut  nostrils,  upper 
lip  short,  chin  well  moulded,  and  head  shapely. 
The  mouth,  however,  does  not  form  a  Cupid's  bow, 
and  the  eyes  are  set  rather  too  close  together  to 
suit  the  taste  of  some.  In  old  people  the  long  nose, 
with  much  septum  showing  between  the  nostrils, 
suggests  the  hawk.  The  hair  is  fine  and  often 
wavy,  while  the  complexion  is  good.  The  sight 
of  so  many  handsome  people  brightens  one's 
spirits  and  renews  one's  faith  in  the  future  of 
humanity. 

Nowadays  the  Georgians  rarely  wear  a  full 
beard,  but  when  they  do  it  is  soft  and  flowing, 
never  bushy  as  with  a  race  of  coarser  hair.  It 
was  in  Tiflis  that  the  whiskers  question,  which 
since  my  arrival  in  Russia  had  been  gathering 
insistence  in  my  subconsciousness,  came  abruptly 
to  a  head.  Following,  perhaps,  some  traditional 
clerical  prejudice  against  shaving,  the  Russians 
run  extravagantly  to  beard.    "Boots-and-whis- 


IMPRESSIONS  FROM  CAUCASUS   55 

kers"   is   the   foreigner's   nickname   for   them. 

"What  's  the  restaurant  car  giving  for  break- 
fast this  morning?"  I  asked  an  American  who  oc- 
cupied a  coupe  with  a  Russian  officer. 

1 '  Don 't  know, ' '  he  replied.  ' '  Wait  till  my  com- 
panion gets  back.  He  '11  have  the  menu  on  his 
whiskers!" 

A  flowing  beard  may  be  ornamental,  but  never 
the  "billy-goat  beard"  that  hangs.  This  is  why 
many  of  the  hirsute  appendages  one  sees  in  Russia 
are  as  depressing  as  the  Spanish  moss  that  dangles 
from  dead  branches  in  dank  woods.  Were  its 
superfluous  whiskers  tucked  away  in  half  a  mil- 
lion hair  mattresses,  there  would  be  less  "unrest" 
in  Russia.  The  mown  chin,  to  be  sure,  is  arti- 
ficial, but  why  should  a  reasonable  being  retreat 
behind  a  tangle  of  sorrel  undergrowth  because 
half  a  million  years  ago  nature  hit  upon  facial 
hair  as  an  advertisement  of  maleness  ?  When  the 
chin  is  so  expressive  of  character,  why  should  a 
man  who  has  nothing  to  conceal  hide  himself  in  a 
thicket  of  coarse,  tawny  hair?  So,  after  having 
conscientiously  suspended  judgment  for  a  quarter 
of  a  year,  in  Tiflis  my  subconsciousness  suddenly 
erupted  the  sentiment,  "Down  with  whiskers!" 

Every  Georgian  who  can  afford  it  wears  the 
tcherkeska,  a  costume  which  grew  up  among  the 
Tcherkesses  or  Circassians  on  the  other  side  of 
the  Caucasus,  who  half  a  century  ago  migrated  to 
their  fellow-Mohammedans  in  Turkey  rather  than 
endure  Christian  domination.  Besides  a  close- 
fitting  coat  of  snuff-  or  cream-colored  woolen  cloth 


56  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

with  long  very  full  skirts,  decorated  across  the 
bosom  with  rows  of  cartridge  pouches,  he  wears 
at  his  waist  a  dagger  in  a  damascened  silver 
sheath,  and  at  his  side  carries  a  crooked  saber. 
Add  soft,  yellow  boots  and  a  tall  cap  of  lamb's 
wool,  and  you  have  the  most  gallant  and  dashing 
of  all  male  costumes.  While  gold  or  silver  orna- 
ments have  replaced  cartridges  in  the  stalls,  the 
edged  weapons  of  the  national  full-dress  are  by  no 
means  an  innocuous  survival.  They  are  kept 
sharp,  and  rarely  does  a  Georgian  avenge  a  per- 
sonal injury  by  a  law-suit.  Formal  duels  are  not 
fought,  and  differences  are  settled  rather  casually, 
but  it  is  the  height  of  bad  form  to  draw  a  weapon 
in  the  presence  of  women  or  girls. 

Our  six  days  in  a  caleche,  posting  leisurely  to 
Vladikavkaz  and  back  through  the  mellow  October 
days,  was  an  excursion  into  quaint,  time-yellowed 
volumes  of  human  history.  The  Caucasus  is  like 
a  stone-pile  in  a  New  England  pasture  into  which 
mice  and  gophers,  woodchucks  and  cotton-tails 
have  crept  for  safety's  sake.  To  the  south  has 
run  a  veritable  tidal  rip,  owing  to  the  migrations 
of  peoples  and  the  rush  of  conquerors.  To  save 
their  lives,  all  sorts  of  bands  and  fragments  of 
races  have  run  into  this  mountain  labyrinth,  each 
making  some  valley-closet  its  own.  In  the  up- 
lands of  Daghestan  live  descendants  of  the  Huns 
and  the  Avars.  The  Ossets  call  themselves 
"Iron,"  i.  e.,  Iranian  or  Aryan.  The  frequency 
in  Hittite  and  Accadian  inscriptions  of  words  of 
everyday  use  in  Georgia  leads  scholars  like  Pro- 


IMPRESSIONS  FROM  CAUCASUS      57 

f  essor  Sayce  to  the  theory  that  the  Georgians  are 
a  remnant  of  the  Hittites.  The  Circassians  to 
the  north  of  the  range  are  merely  Georgians  who 
went  over  to  Islam.  In  fact,  the  Mingrelians,  Im- 
editians,  Kaketians,  Khevsnrs,  Suans,  and  other 
non-Tatar  tribes  are  but  Georgians  who  have  be- 
come differentiated  by  time  and  locality.  Owing 
to  isolation,  some  of  the  tribes  are  backsliders 
from  Christianity  into  heathenism,  recognize  sa- 
cred rocks  and  groves,  worship  strange  nature 
gods,  and  celebrate  weird  feasts  of  the  dead. 

Up  among  the  crags  and  high  pastures  it  is 
borne  in  upon  the  observer  why  "mountaineers 
are  always  freemen."  It  is  clear  that  the  people 
who  eke  out  a  living  from  the  tiny  fields  and 
meadows  at  an  altitude  of  from  5000  to  8000  feet, 
and  coax  subsistence  from  soil  a  plains-dweller 
would  despise,  have  made  great  sacrifices  for  their 
freedom.  The  dwellers  in  the  plain  to  the  south 
lived  easier  and  worked  less,  but  they  ran  the  risk 
of  being  conquered  or  enslaved.  Those  who  could 
least  tolerate  the  yoke  of  another's  will  abandoned 
the  rich  plains  for  the  inhospitable  highlands. 
By  enduring  poverty  they  have  paid  in  full  for 
their  freedom,  and  they  know  it.  Mountaineers 
are  therefore  likely  to  be  more  high-spirited  and 
defiant,  less  money-grubbing  and  sordid,  than  low- 
landers.  The  same  difference  is  to  be  noticed  be- 
tween nomad  Arabs  and  the  fellahin  of  the  oases. 

North  of  the  pass  the  scenery  is  wild  and  stern. 
South  of  it  there  is  more  soil,  verdure,  and  culti- 
vation.   In  the  north,  only  the  horse  is  used,  while 


58  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

in  the  south  there  is  a  liberal  use  of  oxen  and,  at 
the  lower  levels,  of  the  Indian  buffalo.  Who 
drives  these  latter  animals  cares  little  for  time, 
and,  in  fact,  it  would  seem  that  the  moment  you 
descend  from  the  pass  into  Asia  the  people  be- 
come less  hurried. 

We  pass  Austrian  prisoners  with  a  single  Rus- 
sian in  charge,  driving  herds  of  lean,kine  south 
over  the  pass,  bound  for  the  famishing  soldiers 
on  the  Caucasian  front.  Two  thirds  of  the  cattle 
are  not  full-grown,  but  are  mere  yearlings  or  two- 
year  olds.  It  is  pitiful  to  butcher  such  small  ani- 
mals when  they  would  be  worth  so  much  for 
slaughter  later  on. 

Again  and  again  the  famous  Georgian  military 
road  we  travel  is  blocked  for  a  furlong  or  more  by 
sheep — as  many  as  three  thousand  in  a  single 
drove — being  brought  down  from  the  high  pas- 
tures lest  the  early  snows  catch  them.  The  shep- 
herds in  their  sheepskin  coats,  feet  bound  in  rags 
and  shod  in  bast  moccasins,  head  in  home-made 
wool  hat,  might  have  stepped  from  the  idylls  of 
Theocritus.  No  doubt  they  would  feel  quite  at 
home  in  classical  antiquity.  Noting  the  bold  eyes, 
free  stride,  and  proud  bearing  of  these  hill-men, 
I  recall  a  remark  by  a  Russian  railway  official  who 
had  double-tracked  the  Trans-Siberian  through 
the  series  of  tunnels  about  the  southern  end  of 
Lake  Baikal  and  previously,  while  managing  the 
railways  of  the  Caucasus,  had  dreamed  of  tunnel- 
ing Krestovaya  Pass  and,  with  the  locomotive 
whistle,  waking  the  echoes  in  these  wild  glens.    He 


IMPRESSIONS  FROM  CAUCASUS   59 

described  the  Caucasian  railway  laborers  as  "in- 
dependent and  liberty-loving  men  who  could  be 
handled  only  by  sympathy  and  tact."  After 
these,  he  found  it  child's  play  to  manage  Russian 
laborers. 

At  every  posting-station  we  get  fresh  horses  and 
a  new  yamshchik,  or  driver.  Some  of  the  drivers 
who  whirl. us  over  the  ten  miles  between  stations 
look  every  inch  the  stage  brigand.  Beside  these 
scowling  redoubtable  fellows  the  Corsican  brigand 
looks  as  tame  as  a  ribbon-clerk. 

During  September  seven  posting-horses  have 
been  shot  from  ambush  between  Lars  and  Balta 
on  account  of  a  feud,  so  our  driver  on  this  stage 
carries  gun  and  revolver,  in  addition  to  the  dag- 
ger and  saber  that  are  a  part  of  the  regular  dress 
of  a  man  in  the  Caucasus,  as  much  a  matter  of 
course  as  the  revolver  in  our  cow-boy  West. 
These  people,  moreover,  have  devised  a  deadly 
weapon,  peculiarly  their  own,  in  the  shape  of  a 
powerful,  savage,  and  plucky  race  of  dogs.  These 
are  white  or  parti-colored,  with  short  hair  and 
wide  heads.  They  are  not  the  least  of  the  dangers 
met  by  the  traveler  in  the  Caucasus.  Far  up  the 
heights,  on  slopes  as  steep  as  a  barn-roof,  are 
great  clusters  of  tiny  stacks  of  grain  or  hay. 
Later  these  will  be  hauled  on  sledges  down  to  the 
farmstead  or  village.  In  many  yards  threshing 
is  going  on.  The  grain  is  spread  on  a  little  hand- 
beaten  threshing-floor,  and  a  woman  or  girl  drives 
round  and  round  four  heifers  or  colts  tethered  to- 
gether, while  a  man  with  a  fork  turns  the  grain  in 


60  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

from  the  sides  and  shakes  it  up.  Finally  the  straw 
is  lifted  and  thrown  aside,  the  grain  and  chaff  are 
swept  together  in  a  heap,  and  the  light  stuff  is 
winnowed  out  of  the  mixture  by  tossing  it  into  the 
air  against  the  wind. 

The  houses  are  of  rough  stone,  flat-topped,  and 
are  roofed  with  flat  stones  covered  with  cement. 
The  back  of  the  house  is  the  hill-side.  The  front 
is  often  a  kind  of  porch,  with  one  or  two  window- 
less  rooms  behind.  Square,  stone  towers,  to  which 
one  might  retreat  and  stand  a  siege,  are  a  feature 
of  most  of  the  villages.  In  certain  Caucasian 
valleys  where  the  tradition  of  law  is  utterly  lost 
every  farm  has  its  tower  of  refuge,  just  as  in 
some  parts  of  our  West  every  family  has  its 
cyclone-cellar. 

No  doubt  there  are  more  handsome  men  among 
these  peasants  and  shepherds  than  can  be  found  in 
any  other  rural  population.  The  bronzed,  eagle- 
faced  highlander,  with  a  firm  chin  and  a  nose  like 
a  cathedral  buttress,  is  the  normal  type.  Hair 
and  beard  are  black  or  dark-brown,  and  are  very 
fine.  In  rich  robes  the  erect,  keen-eyed,  old  men 
with  their  silky,  grizzling  beards  would  pass  for 
Venetian  councilors  of  state.  The  women  have 
strong  features  and  fine  eyes,  but  they  have  poor 
complexions  and  fade  early.  Either  their  skin  is 
not  fine  or  it  coarsens  quickly  from  exposure. 
Moreover,  the  strongly  moulded  features  which  so 
befit  the  men  do  not  suit  our  ideas  of  softness  and 
delicacy,  so  the  women  excite  less  admiration  than 
the  men. 


IMPRESSIONS  FROM  CAUCASUS      61 

Since  Peter  the  Great  the  tsar  has  been 
head  of  the  Russian  Orthodox  Church,  so  when 
by  the  Treaty  of  1783,  Georgia  relinquished  her 
independence,  the  tsar  would  no  more  tolerate  a 
Katholikos  in  Georgia  than  he  would  tolerate  a 
Patriarch  in  Russia.  Moreover,  there  has  been 
a  consistent  policy  of  favoring  the  Orthodox 
Church  at  the  expense  of  the  Georgian  Church. 
From  the  time  that  Russia  gained  control  very 
little  has  been  done  to  keep  in  repair  Georgian 
churches  and  cathedrals,  and  in  consequence  they 
have  fallen  into  a  bad  state.  For  the  restoration 
of  the  cathedral  at  Mtzchet,  where  lived  St.  Nina, 
who  in  347  a.  d.  introduced  Christianity  to  Geor- 
gia, only  300  rubles  a  year  have  been  set  aside. 
A  quarter  of  a  century  ago  the  Russian  Synod 
appropriated  the  income  of  the  monastery  of 
Bodby, — the  resting-place  of  the  body  of  St.  Nina, 
— filled  the  house  with  nuns  of  Russian  orders, 
and  conducted  the  religious  services  only  in  Rus- 
sian. For  years  several  million  rubles  belonging 
to  the  Georgian  Church  have  been  in  the  strong- 
box of  the  Holy  Synod  in  Moscow.  Nevertheless, 
the  Georgian  priest  has  been  getting  a  paltry  two 
or  three  hundred  rubles  a  year,  while  from  the 
budget  of  the  Georgian  Church  the  priest  of  a 
Russian  parish  has  been  paid  ten  times  as  much. 

All  this  discrimination  passed  away  with  the  old 
regime,  and  the  Georgian  Church  promptly  sig- 
nalized its  new  freedom  by  reviving  the  office  of 
Katholikos.  By  chance  we  arrived  at  Mtzchet  on 
our  return  journey  to  Tiflis  on  the  very  Sunday  set 


62  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

aside  for  the  solemn  induction  of  the  new  head  of 
the  church,  and  there  witnessed  an  outburst  of 
national  feeling  that  will  be  a  landmark  in  the 
spiritual  history  of  this  people. 

While  driving  down  from  the  highlands  on  the 
previous  day  we  had  noticed  a  great  drift  of  peo- 
ple in  gala  attire  journeying  in  the  direction  we 
were  going.  Our  caleche  overhauled  many  a 
crowded  wagon  and  oxcart  and  passed  numerous 
pedestrian  groups  and  families  camping  by  the 
highway.  The  posting-stations  were  full  of  peo- 
ple trying  to  catch  a  ride,  and  we  had  great  diffi- 
culty in  reserving  our  spare  seats  for  persons  we 
chose  to  ask  to  ride  with  us.  On  coming  out  after 
a  change  of  horses  we  would  find  the  box  loaded 
down  with  self-invited  guests. 

The  morning  trains  from  Tiflis  came  in  packed, 
with  the  roofs  loaded  with  eager  sightseers.  At 
the  station  a  procession  was  formed  to  escort  the 
Katholikos-elect  and  the  bishops  to  the  church 
half  a  mile  distant.  A  circle  of  girls  with  joined 
hands  enclosed  the  automobile  of  the  prelates,  who 
with  patriarchal  beards  and  in  stately  robes 
looked  the  dignitaries  that  they  were.  They  were 
preceded  by  a  choir  of  comely  young  men  in  red 
velvet  doublets  trimmed  with  gold  braid,  loose 
blue  trousers,  and  soft,  buff  boots.  A  battalion  of 
Georgians  in  dress  uniform,  with  rich  profusion  of 
gold  braid  and  gold  cord,  headed  the  procession. 
Great  numbers  of  horsemen,  wearing  the  tcher- 
keska  and  carrying  rifles,  followed  the  prelates ' 
conveyance.    Most  picturesque  of  all  in  this  color- 


IMPRESSIONS  FROM  CAUCASUS      65 

ful  pageant  was  a  squad  of  mountain  Khevsurs  in 
chain-mail.  This  little  mountain-tribe  call  them- 
selves " Children  of  the  Cross' ■  and  wear  the  cross 
embroidered  on  all  their  garments.  Prince  Or- 
beliani,  cousin  to  the  present  heir  of  the  Georgian 
kings,  assured  me  that  thirteen  crusaders, — eight 
French,  one  English,  two  Italian,  and  two  Spanish, 
— endeavoring  to  escape  from  the  Holy  Land 
after  the  break-up  of  the  Frankish  power  there, 
settled  in  one  of  the  high  valleys  of  the  Caucasus, 
took  daughters  of  the  land  as  mates,  and  became 
ancestors  of  the  Khevsurs,  some  of  which  per- 
fectly reproduce  the  Frankish  type.  Among  them 
are  two  old  French  family  names  that  have  died 
out  in  France.  They  have  kept  alive  the  art  of 
making  chain-mail  and  shields,  and  cherish  as 
heirlooms  certain  heavy,  two-handed  swords  that 
were  wielded  in  Palestine  by  the  forefathers  of 
the  tribe. 

A  jewel  of  a  story  that !  How  it  fires  the  imag- 
ination !  But  candor  obliges  me  to  record  that  the 
scholarly  director  of  the  Georgian  Museum  at 
Tiflis  thinks  that  the  Khevsurs  are  not  descend- 
ants of  Crusaders,  but  simply  isolated  warriors 
who  preserve  medieval  customs  and  manners. 
Their  wearing  of  the  cross  on  their  garments  gave 
a  French  writer  the  idea  of  their  Crusader  origin. 
Nor  was  he  gentle  with  the  surmise  that  the  Ossets 
are  Ostrogoths  in  origin,  because  their  language 
contains  various  pure  Germanic  words. 

Amid  constant  cheering  from  bystanders  and 
much  skirling  of  bagpipes  the  procession  makes  its 


66  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

way  to  the  church,  now  about  four  centuries  old, 
and  proceeds  with  the  ceremonies  of  installation. 
Outside  is  a  large  space  enclosed  by  a  high  crenel- 
lated wall,  really  a  fortified  enclosure.  Here  are 
four  or  five  thousand  people,  unable  to  crowd 
into  the  sacred  edifice,  who  are  preparing  to  feast. 
Hundreds  of  bullock-carts  have  been  backed 
against  the  wall,  and  over  numerous  fires  tea- 
kettles are  singing  or  soup  is  bubbling  in  big  cop- 
per vessels.  Fowls  are  dressed  and  spitted.  One 
man  cuts  the  throat  of  a  sheep  and  dresses  it,  and 
soon  morsels  of  it  are  toasting  before  his  fire. 
Gay  home-made  draperies  are  thrown  over  a  pole, 
making  a  canopy  under  which  family  parties  sit 
cross-legged  on  rich,  hand-woven  rugs.  Long 
tables  are  spread,  laden  with  brown  bread,  cheese, 
caviar,  pickles,  fish,  fowl,  and  great  decanters  of 
the  harsh  red  wine  of  Kakhetia,  besides  pears, 
apples,  and  grapes.  Here  are  strewn  the  choir- 
singers  in  velvet,  and  amid  jests  and  laughter  fair 
damsels  pass  youths  in  crimson  doublets  portions 
of  cold  fowl  or  lamb  on  the  point  of  a  dagger. 
Earthenware  flagons  of  wine  are  handed  about. 
Each  group  calls  to  passing  friends  to  come  and 
join  them.  A  party  of  soldiers  invites  us  to  eat 
with  them,  and  there  is  much  drinking  of  healths 
to  America  and  Georgia. 

As  appetite  loses  its  edge,  the  festal  spirit  gains 
full  sway.  Here  and  there  they  strike  up  music 
with  fife  and  hand-drum,  or  with  bagpipes. 
Khevsurs  in  helmet  and  chain-mail  engage  in  fenc- 
ing bouts  with  swords  and  round  shields.    When- 


IMPRESSIONS  FROM  CAUCASUS      67 

ever  dancing  begins  a  crowd  gathers,  which  claps 
hands  in  time  with  the  music.  After  some  pre- 
liminary pirouetting  a  handsome,  slim-waisted, 
black-eyed  young  fellow  in  a  black  tcherkeska  and 
white  lambskin  cap  stops  and  bows  to  the  girl  he 
wishes  as  his  partner.  There  is  no  clasping  of 
hands,  still  less  " hugging  to  music,"  as  the  old 
Empress  Dowager  of  China  used  to  term  our 
round  dances.  Without  touching  they  dance,  fac- 
ing each  other  or  revolving  each  about  the  other. 
Nothing  more  modest  or  graceful  can  be  imagined, 
and  I  recall  with  shame  the  intimate  dances, 
idiotic  or  obscene,  in  which  our  young  people,  with 
the  approval  of  wren-brained  parents,  have  been 
indulging  during  recent  years. 

In  this  fete  the  social  extremes  of  the  Georgian 
people  meet.  Here  is  a  rough,  sunburned  shep- 
herd in  sheepskin  coat  and  goatskin  cap,  carrying 
wallet  and  crook,  with  the  steady,  slow-moving 
eyes  of  dwellers  in  wide  spaces  who  have  never 
scanned  lines  of  print.  By  him  stands  the  head 
of  a  clan,  a  "prince,"  no  doubt,  for  the  tsar  has 
been  very  free  in  bestowing  that  title  upon  the 
chiefs  and  lairds  of  these  people,  with  blue  velvet 
sleeves  emerging  from  a  fancy  cape,  a  full-skirted 
broadcloth  coat,  and  very  full  trousers  falling  over 
the  top  of  russet-purple  boots  turned  up  at  the 
toe.  Like  that  of  France,  the  Georgian  nobility 
has  a  social  rather  than  a  political  significance. 
The  people  are  democratic  in  spirit;  there  is  not 
the  least  chance  of  a  revival  of  monarchy  in 
Georgia,  and  the  nobles  will  hardly  have  more  po- 


68  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

litical  weight  than  their  individual  merit  entitles 
them  to. 

In  face  and  pose  the  young  men  recall  the  finest 
American  Indian  type — the  Mohawk  warrior. 
Maidens  are  there  who  might  assume  the  title  role 
of  Iphigenia  at  Tauris.  The  matrons  would  pass 
for  mothers  of  heroes.  Not  one  old  woman  is 
obese  or  shapeless.  All  are  straight  and  slender, 
with  a  look  of  determination  on  their  strongly 
moulded  features  as  of  mothers  who  would  exhort 
their  sons, ' '  Bring  back  your  shields  or  be  brought 
back  on  them."  With  the  face  framed  by  a  veil 
tied  over  the  red  or  purple  velvet  brim  of  the  little 
tiara  they  wear,  the  women  resemble  the  portraits 
of  early  English  queens. 

A  visit  to  Kakhetia  confirms  the  feeling  that 
the  Caucasus  harbors  the  blood-kin  of  the  Greeks 
of  the  classic  period.  Dominated  by  a  snowy 
chain  that  thrusts  peaks  up  to  16,000  feet  and 
separates  it  from  Daghestan,  the  valley  of  the 
Alasan  is  surely  one  of  the  loveliest  of  the  abodes 
of  men.  The  valley-floor,  from  six  to  twenty  miles 
wide,  is  given  up  to  wheat-field  and  meadow,  while 
the  foot-hills  are  covered  with  vineyards.  Charm- 
ing villages,  so  embowered  that  only  red  roofs  and 
white  church  are  visible,  dot  the  valley  and  slopes. 
Plows,  drawn  by  half  a  dozen  yoke  of  oxen  or 
buffalo,  turn  the  soil.  Each  vineyard  has  its  fun- 
nel-shaped mortar  ten  or  twelve  feet  high  to  bom- 
bard the  skies  when  hail  threatens.  Every  vil- 
lage has  its  elementary,  four-year  public  school. 
Families  are  moderate  in  size.    There  is  no  popu- 


IMPRESSIONS  FROM  CAUCASUS      69 

lation  pressure,  and  no  one  migrates  from  this 
happy  vale.  The  peasants  are  proud,  and  no 
Georgian  girl  can  be  induced  to  be  a  servant,  save 
in  certain  old  families.  In  the  inns  the  servants 
are  Russian.  The  position  of  women  is  high.  In 
late  years  the  development  of  cooperation  has  been 
marvelous.  Education  is  appreciated,  and  the 
folk  are  willing  to  accept  the  leadership  of  their 
intellectuals.  For  this  brave,  handsome,  and  pic- 
turesque little  people  one  may  hope  a  bright 
future. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  FILM  OF  EUSSIAN  CENTRAL  ASIA 

KRASNOVODSK,  a  shadeless,  bone-dry  town 
at  the  foot  of  rocky  hills  on  the  east  side 
of  the  Caspian  and  the  starting-point  of  the  Cen- 
tral Asian  railroad  which  reaches  twelve  hundred 
miles  to  Andijan,  shares  with  Buenaventura,  a 
jungle-girt  Colombian  port  where  it  rains  every 
afternoon,  the  distinction  of  being  the  worst  hole 
I  know  of  to  be  detained  in.  Too  much  and  too 
little  moisture  come  to  much  the  same  thing. 
After  a  night's  ride  we  are  in  the  Akhal  Oasis, 
the  home  of  the  Tekke  Turcomans.  We  skirt  dry- 
looking  mountains  to  the  south,  while  a  few  miles 
to  the  north  lies  the  desert,  masked  by  mirage. 
The  soil  is  not  sand,  but  wind-borne  loess  which, 
baptized,  bursts  into  green.  Here  and  there  we 
pass  a  cluster  of  emerald  farms  where  they  have 
caught  a  mountain-brook  and  strained  it  through 
a  patch  of  waste.  Mud-walls  divide  field  from 
field  and  garden  from  garden.  Trees — poplar  and 
willow — are  grown  in  rows,  and  along  each  row 
runs  a  ditch  to  let  the  water  bathe  their  roots. 

The  mountains  are  condensers,  so  that  for  a  few 
miles  out  from  them  there  is  much  clump-herbage 
which  nourishes  herds  of  camels,  droves  of  cattle, 

and  flocks  of  long-wool  sheep.    When  the  passing 

70 


RUSSIAN  CENTRAL  ASIA  71 

train  cleaves  a  large,  browsing  herd  of  camels,  the 
effect  is  grotesque.  There  is  no  light-foot,  pranc- 
ing dashaway,  as  with  startled  horses.  The  ugly 
beasts  lift  their  heads  with  a  discontented  inquir- 
ing air  and  in  ungainly  fashion  trot  away.  The 
camel  is  the  clown  among  pack-animals,  but  he 
is  not  playful. 

It  is  hours  before  the  traveler  can  take  his  eyes 
off  the  Turcomans  who  crowd  the  little  stations 
and  third-class  coaches.  They  wear  a  red-striped, 
quilted,  outer  garment,  falling  below  the  knees — 
it  is  something  like  a  dressing-gown — girt  in  at  the 
middle  with  a  gay,  knotted  sash  in  which  are  stuck 
dagger,  sword,  and  sometimes  a  pistol.  The  cap, 
an  enormous  affair  of  long-wool  sheepskin  which 
would  nearly  fill  a  bushel  measure,  gives  them  a 
most  formidable  appearance.  The  Turcomans 
are  hardy,  strapping  men,  but  the  differences 
among  them  in  eye,  nose,  beard,  and  com- 
plexion suggest  a  recent  origin  from  the  crossing 
of  stocks.  Some  are  as  dark  as  Hindus,  others  as 
yellow  as  Chinese,  while  there  are  faces  quite  fresh 
in  tint.  Besides  the  broad,  Mongolian  nose,  you 
see  noses  as  straight  and  slim  as  the  nose  of  the 
Persian.  Some  have  a  very  short  upper  lip,  while 
others  have  the  long  lip  of  a  bog  Irishman.  The 
broad,  Mongol  chin  alternates  with  the  refined, 
pointed,  Iranian  chin.  At  times  the  eye  is  Chi- 
nese, at  other  times  Caucasian. 

In  umbrageous  Askhabad,  just  across  the  street, 
you  might  say,  from  Persia,  I  attended  services  in 
a  mosque  of  the  Shiite  Persians.     Every  one  left 


72  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

his  shoes  with  the  caretaker  at  the  entrance,  but 
none  removed  his  headgear,  which  was  in  every 
case  the  characteristic  black  cap  of  short  lamb's 
wool.  The  floor  of  the  mosque  was  covered  with 
rugs,  and  of  course  it  was  without  seats.  Each 
man,  when  he  had  found  a  place  on  the  rugs,  stood 
a  moment  praying,  bowed  halfway  to  the  floor, 
stood  erect  again,  then  dropped  to  his  knees,  fell 
forward,  and  pressed  his  forehead  to  the  floor. 
Some  went  through  this  whole  performance  thrice, 
muttering  prayers  at  each  obeisance.  Many 
placed  before  them  on  the  floor  a  little  round  flat- 
tish  bit  of  wood  the  size  of  a  watch  and  rested  the 
forehead  on  that.  While  the  mosque  was  filling 
up,  attendants  passed  noiselessly  about  serving 
glasses  of  tea  gratis. 

Presently  the  sitting  imawn  intoned  from  the 
Koran  and  the  congregation  responded,  many  fol- 
lowing from  their  own  prayer-books.  Then  he 
arose  and  read  out  announcements,  after  which  he 
introduced  the  preacher  of  the  day,  an  extremely 
good-looking,  broad-browed,  black-bearded  man  of 
forty,  in  black  robes  and  white  turban.  He  as- 
cended a  flight  of  eight  steps  into  a  " pulpit,' ' 
seated  himself,  and,  concealing  his  left  hand  in 
the  folds  of  his  robe,  began  to  preach.  At  first 
he  chanted,  but  after  a  series  of  exclamations  or 
questions  passed  over  into  the  forensic  tone. 
Frequently  he  uttered  sentiments  or  made  allu- 
sions that  drew  cries  from  his  hearers.  Presently 
many  were  holding  handkerchiefs  to  their  eyes 
and  audibly  weeping.    Groans  and  lamentations 


i 


Tsaritzuin  market  scene 


Ossetian  hut  in  the  Caucasus 


Mt.  Kasbek 


RUSSIAN  CENTRAL  ASIA  75 

broke  out  on  all  sides.  The  preacher  became  more 
animated,  using  his  right  hand  very  freely  for 
graceful  and  expressive  gestures.  The  effect  of 
the  gesturing  hand,  seen  against  the  background 
of  black  robes,  was  very  striking.  As  the  listen- 
ers became  more  moved,  they  struck  the  palm  of 
the  hand  against  the  forehead.  They  seemed  to  be 
out  of  themselves,  and  I  could  see  that  if  in  such  a 
moment  the  imaum  exhorted,  "Go  forth  and  slay 
these  Christian  dogs!"  they  would  blindly  fall 
upon  even  their  neighbors  and  friends.  But  he 
closed  his  discourse,  the  faithful  came  to  them- 
selves, and  the  congregation  streamed  out  into  the 
level  rays  of  the  setting  sun. 

Bokhara,  a  Russian  protectorate,  but  under  its 
own  Emir,  preserves  its  old  spirit  and  keeps  its 
reputation  of  being  the  purest  of  Mohammedan 
communities — a  City  of  Steady  Habits,  as  strict 
and  sure  of  herself  as  Knox's  Edinburgh  or  Cal- 
vin's Geneva.  Here,  girt  by  an  eight-mile  wall 
twenty-five  feet  high,  live  eighty  thousand  Mussul- 
mans, with  no  taint  whatever  of  Europeans.  To 
be  sure,  Christian  envoys  are  no  longer  hurled 
from  the  top  of  a  minaret  two  hundred  feet  high, 
as  were  the  two  British  officers,  Stoddart  and 
Conolly,  who  seventy-five  years  ago  penetrated  to 
Bokhara  from  India.  Slaves  have  ceased  to  be 
dealt  in  at  the  bazaar  and,  under  the  influence  of 
the  Russian  Resident,  the  punishments  the  Emir 
deals  out  to  malefactors  are  less  ferocious. 

Otherwise,  life  wags  on  in  the  good  old  way.    At 


76  KUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

sunset,  the  gates  are  closed,  the  shutters  are  put 
up,  every  one  withdraws  to  his  own  house,  and  by 
eight  o'clock,  the  unlit  streets  are  deserted,  for 
public  amusement  there  is  none.  The  few  women 
who  ever  appear  in  the  street  are  shapeless  in 
gray  garments,  their  faces  concealed  by  horsehair 
veils.  In  more  than  a  hundred  medressehs,  or  col- 
leges, young  men  waste  their  years  chewing  a  few 
ancient  books  of  Mohammedan  theology  and  law 
and  learning  whole  volumes  by  heart.  Inquiry 
into  nature  and  her  forces  is  never  thought  of. 
Three  hundred  and  sixty-odd  mosques  are  needed 
to  accommodate  the  male  worshippers,  for  women, 
of  course,  do  not  worship  in  public.  Morning  and 
evening  and  on  Friday  at  noon  the  muezzins 
mount  to  the  top  of  the  minarets  and  call  to 
prayer.  Beggars  with  bowls  line  the  entrance  to 
the  mosque,  and  within  its  precincts  one  finds 
tombs  of  the  saints  of  the  parish,  each  marked  by 
an  upright  pole  with  a  horse  *s  tail  streaming  from 
the  top.  In  the  squares  howling  dervishes  chant 
and  shout  the  praises  of  God,  their  blood-vessels 
near  to  bursting  from  the  violence  of  their  effort, 
while  the  bystanders  listen  respectfully  by  the 
hour.  These  professionals  wear  their  hair  long, 
dress  in  rags,  and  beg  from  door  to  door,  whence 
the  name  calendar,  so  reminiscent  of  the  Arabian 
Nights. 

Here  and  there  in  front  of  some  mosque  or  med- 
resseh  is  a  large,  square  pool  surrounded  by  stair- 
ways of  stone,  and  all  day  long  people  descend  to 
perform  their  ablutions,  rinse  their  mouths,  fill 


RUSSIAN  CENTRAL  ASIA  77 

water-skins,  or  dip  water  for  their  tea-pots.  All 
about  are  tea-houses  in  the  shade  of  great  willows, 
and  the  place  would  be  full  of  charm,  if  only  its 
waters  were  living  instead  of  half-stagnant.  As 
it  is,  Bokhara  is  scourged  by  sicknesses  peculiar  to 
it,  and  the  traveler  does  not  even  wash  in  the 
water,  unless  it  has  been  boiled  or  disinfected. 

No  people  are  more  secluded  in  their  home-life 
than  the  Sarts.  No  windows  open  on  the  street, 
and  a  glance  through  an  open  doorway  meets  only 
a  blank  wall.  But  the  motley  life  of  the  bazaar 
makes  up  for  everything.  In  the  narrow  streets, 
covered  and  cool,  one  may  while  away  wonderful 
hours  watching  the  artificers,  each  at  his  work. 
In  full  view  the  craftsman  turns  his  lathe,  beats 
his  skins,  works  his  bellows,  or  stitches  his  boots. 
Cross-legged  on  the  floor  of  his  booth,  which  is  at 
the  height  of  an  ordinary  bench,  sits  the  merchant, 
with  his  wares  within  reach  and  his  scales,  abacus, 
and  money-drawer  right  under  his  hand.  Rich 
rugs  invite  the  passerby  to  sit  and  have  a  look  at 
the  goods.  All  the  shopping  is  done  by  men, 
and  they  make  it  a  juicy  pastime.  The  dealer  ex- 
pects each  sale  to  yield  him  a  conversation  and  he 
is  disgusted  if  the  question  of  price  is  sprung  too 
early  in  the  transaction.  Not  only  is  there  every 
temptation  to  loiter  and  inspect  wares,  but  there 
are  numberless  opportunities  to  sit  and  have  a 
dish  of  stew,  some  skewers  of  broiled  lamb,  a  slice 
of  melon,  or  a  cup  of  tea. 

But  how  fleeting  are  these  mud-cities  of  the 
oasis !    Unless  they  are  incessantly  repaired,  they 


78  KUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

fall  to  pieces.  The  Emir's  citadel  has  broken 
away  in  great  sheets,  although  by  means  of  small 
logs  embedded  diagonally  in  the  wall  and  by  a 
facing  of  burnt  brick  they  hoped  to  hold  it  to- 
gether. In  a  short  time  the  sun-dried  mud-tombs 
are  in  a  ruinous  condition.  If  men  abandoned 
New  York  for  twenty  years,  many  of  the  buildings 
would  be  as  good  as  ever  a  fortnight  after  their 
return.  In  a  like  period  Bokhara  would  have  be- 
come almost  uninhabitable.  It  is  not  alone  that 
the  bricks  are  merely  sun-dried.  Even  when  the 
bricks  are  baked  in  a  kiln  they  have  little  durabil- 
ity, for  this  loess  is  very  far  from  being  brick- 
clay.  None  of  the  bricks  baked  hereabouts  have 
the  qualities  of  good  American  bricks,  more  last- 
ing than  stone  itself.  No  doubt  clay  of  the  right 
kind  is  near,  but  with  no  means  of  transport,  save 
donkeys  and  camels,  there  is  nothing  to  do  but 
bake  mud  into  bricks,  despite  its  lack  of  silica. 

When  one  sees  what  shapeless  tumuli  have  be- 
come the  walls  and  citadels  of  old  Merv  and  the 
Maracanda  fortress  at  Samarcand  where  Alexan- 
der the  Great  held  his  court  and  stabbed  his  friend 
Clitus,  one  realizes  what  it  meant  for  men  to  rear 
walls  and  buildings  of  cut  stone,  as  they  did  at 
Petra,  Luxor,  Palmyra,  Baalbec,  Athens,  and 
Cuzco.  Once  get  imperishable  structures,  and  you 
get  some  assurance  of  continuity  in  civilization 
and  social  life.  No  wonder  men  consented  to  the 
enormous  labor  necessary  to  rear  the  temples, 
mausolea,  pyramids,  and  palaces  they  fondly 
hoped  would  prove  immortal  I 


Z*l 


Registan,  Bokhara 


B  ill?  i 
Teacher  and  pupil,  Bokhara 


RUSSIAN  CENTRAL  ASIA  81 

^Samarcand  is  administered  by  Russia,  and  has 
developed  alongside  the  native  city,  a  spacious, 
shady,  modern  city  with  25,000  Russians.  In  rich- 
ness and  interest  its  bazaar  life  is  not  to  be  com- 
pared with  that  of  Bokhara.  What  most  rewards 
the  visitor  is  the  sight  of  splendid  monuments 
reared  when  Tamerlane  made  it  his  capital  five- 
and-a-half  centuries  ago. 

Ferghana,  the  jewel  of  Central  Asia,  is  a  well- 
watered,  blooming  country  set  among  mountains 
where  the  streams  are^layJuLbabes.  It  is  quite 
given  up  to  cotton-growing.  -  The  stalks  are  brown 
and  dry,  but  many  fields  are  still  white  with  bolls, 
and  bands  of  cotton-pickers,  each  with  a  huge  bag 
slung  in  front  of  him,  stare  at  our  train.  At  the 
stations  are  mountains  of  cotton-bales,  while 
trains  of  cotton  flow  continually  toward  Tashkent. 
At  Andijan  are  huge  cotton-mills.  This  town,  the 
term  i  mi  a.  of  the  Central  Asian  system^  is  quite, 
Western  in  appearance.  The  spacious  railroad 
yards,  ten  or  twelve  tracks  wide,  are  illuminated 
by  big  arc-lights,  the  broad  streets  are  well  cob- 
bled and  set  with  trees,  while  a  boulevard  nearly 
as  wide  as  Pennsylvania  Avenue  unites  the  old 
city  with  the  new.  The  old  city  is  a  great  market 
for  primary  products — cotton,  sheepskins,  felts, 
homespun,  grain,  meat,  alfalfa,  and  melons.  The 
canteloupes  of  this  region  put  our  Rocky  Fords 
in  the  pumpkin  class.  Why  does  not  our  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture  Americanize  the  luscious 
dinya  of  Ferghana! 

A  flight  by  a  new  railroad  to  Namanghan  re- 


82  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

veals  an  abundance  of  green  mountain-water 
whirling  and  darting  through  the  innumerable 
ditches.  Solemn  cranes  stand  meditative  in  the 
fields.  It  rains  here  in  winter,  so  the  natural 
green  of  the  foliage  is  not  quenched  in  gray  dust, 
as  it  is  in  the  oases  where  it  rarely  rains  at  all. 
Horses  drag  the  plow  by  means  of  a  yoke  with 
bows,  and  the  yoke  holds  them  at  least  seven  feet 
apart.  The  handle  of  the  plow  is  a  clumsy  post, 
standing  nearly  straight  up.  For  miles  the  house 
and  outbuildings  of  every  farm  are  enclosed  with 
a  mud-wall,  ten  or  twelve  feet  high  and  thirty  to 
seventy  yards  square.  It  recalls  the  walled  Chi- 
nese villages  of  northern  Shansi,  but  defense  is 
not  the  motive  here,  for  the  walls  disappear  as  we 
get  under  the  lee  of  the  mountains.  No  doubt  they 
are  for  protection  from  raw  winds.  Within  these 
walled  enclosures  are  yards,  gardens,  and  arbors, 
all  out  of  sight  and  sun-bathed.  Huge  grapevines 
as  big  as  a  man's  wrist  are  trellised  so  as  to  make 
beautiful  lofty  arbors,  round  which  revolves  the 
life  of  the  family  during  the  hot  summer, 

We  are  in  a  pioneer  country.  The  khalati  are 
generally  dingy,  and  the  dress  of  the  Sarts  shows 
little  of  the  rich  color  that  characterizes  Bokhar- 
ans.  Here  the  Mongol  blood  is  little  in  evidence. 
People  seem  Aryan,  and  some  of  them  are  fine- 
looking.  Fresh  complexions  are  by  no  means 
rare.  The  range  of  tint  among  them  is  wide, 
showing  race-mixture.  They  are  still  pious  Mo- 
hammedans. When  our  train  stopped  at  a  sta- 
tion about  sunset  time,  a  number  of  them  hur- 


RUSSIAN  CENTRAL  ASIA  83 

ried  out,  spread  something  on  the  desert,  and 
made  their  prayers  toward  Mecca.  Nevertheless, 
these  commercial  farmers  are  being  heaved  out  of 
the  Arabic  socket  by  powerful  economic  forces. 
Their  farmsteads  are  half -Western  in  appearance, 
and  in  a  generation  they  will  be  as  up-to-date  in 
cotton-raising  as  Texas.  How  will  their  Moham- 
medanism fare  then? 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  RUG  MARKET  AT  MERV 

FOR  eight  months  rain  has  fallen  neither  in 
the  oasis  of  Merv  nor  in  the  Afghan  hills  to 
the  south,  where  springs  the  Murghab  on  which 
the  oasis  depends.  Even  last  spring  the  river  was 
so  low  that  the  land  served  by  the  npper  irrigating 
ditches  was  left  unsown.  From  scantness  of  sum- 
mer watering  the  cotton-fields  are  brown,  when 
they  should  be  white  with  bolls  of  fiber,  while  the 
grain  crop  turned  out  so  badly  that  already,  in 
October,  wheat  is  selling  at  one  ruble  and  forty 
kopecks  a  pound.  Moreover,  the  continuance  of 
dry  weather  is  quenching  the  hope  of  a  redeeming 
crop  in  1918.  These  conditions  conspire  to  force 
upon  the  market  the  one  reserve  product  of  the 
Tekke  Turcoman,  so  that  of  late  the  rug  market  is 
something  the  like  of  which  has  never  before  been 
seen  in  Merv.  There  are  two  market-days  in  the 
week  at  Merv,  and  formerly  fifteen  or  twenty  men 
would  turn  up  on  a  market  day,  offering,  perhaps, 
two  hundred  and  fifty  carpets.  Now,  twice  a 
week,  there  will  be  three  or  four  thousand  carpets 
haggled  for  under  the  cloudless  sky  of  Turkestan. 
From  Moscow  and  Baku  and  Tiflis  buyers  have 
hurried  hither,  like  fishermen  who  hear  that  the 
salmon  are  running. 

84 


Rug  merchant  at  Merv  displaying  his  goods 


THE  RUG  MAEKET  AT  MERV        87i 

In  October  the  simple  Turcoman  took  the  ruble 
seriously,  being  quite  unaware  how  its  purchasing 
power  is  being  silently  sapped  by  the  flooding  of 
Russia  with  enormous  issues  of  paper  money  to 
keep  the  Provisional  Government  going.  But  the 
competition  of  buyers  munitioned  with  these  cheap 
rubles  has  doubled  the  price  of  rugs  and  stimu- 
lated the  nomads  to  rush  their  rugs  into  the  mar- 
ket. Remarked  a  Moscow  buyer  for  a  big  Ameri- 
can carpet-house :  "Four  weeks  ago,  I  came  here 
with  a  hundred  thousand  rubles.  I  have  ex- 
changed them  for  carpets  which  at  to-day's  prices 
are  worth  two  hundred  thousand  rubles.' ' 

The  rug  market  is  but  a  section  of  the  fair  held 
on  the  outskirts  of  Merv  every  Monday  and  Thurs- 
day during  the  season.  The  grounds  are  spacious 
enough  to  accommodate  a  sheep  market,  a  wool 
market,  a  felt  market,  a  leather  market,  a  camel- 
trimmings  market,  and  various  other  exchanges  of 
primary  native  products.  Besides  these,  there 
are  streets  of  booths  that  display  the  goods  of  the 
artisan  and  the  importer.  When  Abdullah  has 
sold  his  flock  of  fat-tailed  sheep,  one  lane  invites 
him  with  footwear — tapestry,  socks,  slippers,  soft 
leather  boots,  and  overshoes  to  step  into  when  he 
goes  out.  Another  lane  lures  him  with  gay  em- 
broidered skull-caps  to  wear  under  the  sheepskin 
shako  that  the  Turcoman  never  abandons,  even  at 
a  temperature  of  196  degrees  in  the  sun,  such  as 
was  experienced  here  last  summer.  A  third  lane 
beckons  with  the  red-  or  pink-striped  stuff  that 
enters  into  his  quilted  khaldt  and  the  bright  fabric 


88  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

he  knots  into  the  sash  holding  his  dagger.  Then 
there  are  caterers  to  the  appetites  of  the  five  thou- 
sand gathered  at  the  fair.  You  see  hawkers  with 
trays  of  thin  disks  of  native  bread,  sweetmeat- 
sellers  offering  tempting  candies  that  prove  to  be 
painfully  deficient  in  sweetness,  now  that  sugar  is 
half  a  dollar  a  pound,  melon-dealers  in  booths  yel- 
low with  the  incomparable  canteloupes  from  Char- 
gui,  each  hanging  in  its  sling  of  withe,  and  res- 
tauranteurs  toasting  spitted  mutton  over  a  long 
trough  lined  with  coals.  The  customer,  bringing 
his  disk  of  bread,  seats  himself  on  a  mat  and  is 
handed  a  dozen  skewers  of  sizzling  flesh.  The 
mutton  keeps  coming  hot,  until  he  passes  up  his 
handful  of  bare  skewers  as  token  of  sufficiency. 
On  leaving,  he  pays  five  kopecks  for  each  skewer. 
His  bread  has  served  as  table-cloth  and  napkin. 
There  are  no  tables,  chairs,  dishes,  waiters,  dish- 
washers, or  cashier.  Two  men  to  spit  the  morsels 
of  mutton  and  one  to  toast  them — all  in  full  view. 
What  simplicity ! 

Nothing  in  the  setting  of  the  rug  market  pre- 
pares one  to  expect  the  beauty  that  comes  forth. 
It  is  hemmed  in  by  piles  of  sheepskins,  bales  of 
fleeces,  sacks  of  camel-fodder,  and  stacks  of  char- 
coal. The  visitor  threads  his  way  among  carts, 
burdens,  and  pack-animals,  wary  of  the  front  end 
of  the  camel  and  the  rear  end  of  the  horse,  but 
ignoring  the  donkey,  pacifist  at  both  ends.  To  the 
American  eye,  the  camel  persists  in  seeming  theat- 
rical. On  contemplating  this  animated  clothes- 
frame,  slightly  upholstered,  one  understands  the 


THE  RUG  MARKET  AT  MERV         89 

old  farmer  who,  after  his  first  long  look  at  a 
giraffe,  turned  away  with  the  remark,  "There 
ain't  no  such  critter !"  A  desert,  with  a  herd  of 
camels  cropping  sage-brush,  looks  as  " stagey"  as 
the  Alps  did  to  Tartarin.  Since  he  is  the  only 
beast  of  burden  that  does  not  lie  on  its  side,  the 
camel  can  rest  under  his  load.  His  ends  settle 
down  alternately,  after  the  fashion  of  the  Moslem 
at  prayer,  who  drops  to  his  knees,  then  sits  back 
upon  his  heels,  and  finally  falls  forward  upon  his 
face.  Even  when  a  colt,  the  camel  never  frisks, 
and  the  light  in  his  eye  is  far  from  benign.  His 
temper  has  been  spoiled  by  a  longer  servitude  than 
any  other  pack-animal  has  endured. 

In  the  English  fairs  of  olden  time  there  was  a 
tribunal  of  prompt  justice,  known  as  the  "Court 
of  Pie  Powdry."  The  name  was  a  puzzle  until 
some  one  divined  that  it  was  Norman  French  for 
"pied  poudre,"  or  "dusty  foot."  It  was  a  court 
where  you  went  without  stopping  to  brush  up.  In 
Merv,  after  eight  months  of  drouth,  it  is  not  hard 
to  imagine  why  the  man  at  the  medieval  fair  was 
known  as  "dusty  foot."  Dust,  however,  does  not 
discourage  the  display  of  carpets.  The  finest 
products  of  the  loom,  brilliant  with  the  perishable 
aniline  dyes  that  have  replaced  the  old  immortal 
vegetable  hues,  are  flung  open  upon  the  ground 
and  soon  have  foot-prints  all  over  them.  But 
"nitchevo."  A  little  brushing  with  the  hand,  and 
there  's  your  color  again.  Generally  the  seller 
opens  out  his  biggest  carpet  and  upon  it  displays 
his  smaller  pieces. 


90  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

At  seven-thirty  in  the  morning  carts  are  dis- 
charging rugs,  and  the  nucleus  of  the  market  is 
here,  but  not  a  soul  is  in  sight,  other  than  Turco- 
mans, either  producers  or  local  buyers.  Within 
an  hour,  however,  the  game  is  on.  Sarts  in  tur- 
bans, Bokhara  Jews  in  velvet  caps  fringed  with 
brown  fur,  Persians  in  black  caps  of  short  lamb's 
wool,  and  a  few  Russians  in  derby  hats  go  from 
seller  to  seller,  picking  out  the  rugs  they  care  for, 
having  them  piled  up,  and  making  a  bid  for  the  lot. 
Often,  when  we  pounce  upon  a  rug,  we  find  that  it 
is  in  a  lot  that  is  being  haggled  for  and  hence  is 
not  for  sale  by  itself.  By  noon  the  activity  has 
spread  over  a  space  the  size  of  a  city  block,  and 
carpets  enough  to  sink  several  argosies  are  afloat 
or  slowly  drifting  into  the  dozen  booths  where  the 
big  buyers  store  their  purchases.  Perhaps  two 
hundred  and  fifty  Turcomans  stand  or  squat  by 
their  wares,  while  nearly  two  thousand  buyers, 
bargain-hunters,  and  curious  onlookers  drift 
among  them.  Small  buyers  go  about  with  their 
precious  acquisition  tucked  under  the  arm,  while 
small  sellers  parade  with  a  rug  draped  pictur- 
esquely over  the  shoulder.  Any  one  who  desires 
may  snatch  it  off  his  shoulder  and  examine  it.  In 
a  moment  there  will  be  a  circle  about  them  to  lis- 
ten to  whatever  bargaining  may  ensue.  Dust 
hangs  over  the  throng  from  the  constant  stir  and 
the  endless  opening  and  folding  of  carpets,  while 
continually  you  hear  the  monosyllable,  "Yoak," 
which  means  "No." 


Striking  a  bargain  in  Merv  Rug  Market 


A  Bokhara  Caravanserai 


THE  BUG  MARKET  AT  MERV        93 

Perhaps  one  rug  out  of  eight  or  ten  is  old.  One 
that  has  lain  long  on  the  floor  shows  unmistakable 
signs  of  wear,  but  even  the  carpet  that  has  been 
hanging  against  a  wall  or  serving  as  a  partition  in 
a  kibltka  has  a  beautiful  mellowness  of  tone  that 
one  never  sees  in  a  new  piece.  Smoke  has  some- 
thing to  do  with  this  softness,  and  perhaps  the  sun 
and  the  air.  Some  of  the  choicest  bits  of  carpet 
are  those  forming  the  outer  or  public  side  of  sad- 
dle-bags that  have  long  been  carried  on  camels' 
backs,  stuffed  with  household  belongings.  One 
way  to  pick  up  a  good  thing  is  to  visit  the  black 
tents  of  a  nomad  group  or  to  watch  a  train  of 
camels  stalking  by,  and  when  you  see  something 
that  you  like,  go  after  it  with  a  display  of  ruble 
notes.  But  what  a  come-down  for  a  saddle-bag 
that  has  for  a  generation  or  two  served  as  bureau 
for  a  wandering  family  to  end  by  enveloping  a 
sofa-pillow  in  an  American  home ! 

The  Turcomans  set  great  store  by  their  bright, 
new  fabrics,  and  find  it  hard  to  understand  cranky 
Americans  who  turn  away  from  aniline  colors  as 
emphatic  as  a  bursting  shell  to  fondle  a  rug  that 
has  been  polished  by  stockings  or  soft  boots  until 
its  nap  has  a  sheen  like  rippled  silk.  Once  they 
learn  your  fancy,  however,  they  shake  out  the  fam- 
ily heirlooms  and  call  courteously  to  you  as  you 
pass,  "Gospodin,  posmotrlte!  Stary!  Stdry!" 
i.e.,  "Look,  sir!  Old!  Old!"  Many  of  them 
cannot  name  their  price  in  Russian,  but  can  show 
it  to  you  on  their  abacus,  while  always  some  on- 


94  BUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

looker,  obeying  a  bargain-helping  male  instinct 
akin  to  the  match-making  instinct  in  women,  is 
eager  to  interpret. 

The  symbol  of  agreement  is  to  shake  hands. 
But,  mark  you,  the  right  way  is  to  strike  the  palms 
smartly  together.  Here,  no  doubt,  we  have  the 
origin  of  the  phrase  "Strike  a  bargain,"  for  our 
English  ancestors  seem  to  have  used  the  same 
symbol  the  Turcomans  use  to-day.  The  would-be 
buyer  makes  an  offer  and  in  his  eagerness  to  close 
the  bargain  seizes  the  other's  hand,  meanwhile 
talking  persuasively.  The  other  man  gently  dis- 
engages his  hand,  unless  the  offer  suits  him. 
Often,  while  two  are  shaking  hands,  a  doubt  comes 
into  the  eyes  of  one,  he  shakes  his  head,  and  the 
hands  fall  apart.  So  you  will  see  them  standing, 
robed,  hawkfaced  Turcoman  and  sleek  Persian, 
by  a  pile  of  carpets,  shaking  hands,  strangely 
breaking  apart,  and  coming  together  again. 
What  looks  like  "Hearts-of-Oak"  drama  is  merely 
the  pantomime  of  trade.  When  the  strain  on  the 
spectators  becomes  too  great,  some  graybeard 
friend  seizes  the  hands,  places  them  one  on  the 
other,  and  holds  them  together,  while  he  turns 
from  one  to  the  other,  persuading  him  to  make 
concessions,  until  a  final  vigorous  shake  signifies 
the  deal  is  closed,  and  the  circle  breathes  an  a-a-ah 
of  relief.  The  consummation  of  the  bargain 
comes  when,  after  the  ruble  notes  have  been 
counted  by  each,  the  men  shake  hands  with  the 
money  between  their  palms. 

Presently   caterers   bearing  trays   filled  with 


THE  BUG  MARKET  AT  MERV        95 

chinaware  pots  of  hot  tea  circulate,  bringing  re- 
freshment to  those  on  guard  over  their  rugs.  Or 
they  clear  the  dust  from  their  throats  with  the 
melons  of  Chargui,  which,  owing  to  some  prop- 
erty in  the  water  or  the  soil  there,  are  famed  as 
far  away  as  Petrograd  and  throw  quite  into  the 
shade  the  yellow  li dxnya"  of  Bokhara.  Then  a 
man  carrying  a  "narghili"  goes  about,  letting  who 
will  take  a  cool  suck  at  it  for  five  kopecks.  By  the 
middle  of  the  afternoon  the  market  has  become 
languid.  The  dealers  lounge  with  their  friends 
upon  piles  of  folded  rugs,  sip  tea,  smoke  ciga- 
rettes, count  their  money,  and  gossip.  The  pres- 
ent plethoric  market  is  a  climax,  and  will  soon  be 
a  memory.  The  rugs  number  thousands,  and 
their  value  is  not  less  than  600,000  rubles.  In  one 
old  Turcoman 's  hand  I  saw  twenty-four  thousand- 
ruble  notes.  The  homes  of  the  middle  class,  as 
well  as  of  the  poor,  are  being  cleared  of  their  car- 
pets in  order  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  the  hour. 
Only  the  rich  can  keep  their  rugs.  In  a  few  years 
there  will  be  a  great  scarcity  of  Tekke  rugs  in  the 
market,  because  the  reserve  stocks  will  have  been 
exhausted. 

The  making  of  these  Tekke — miscalled  "  Bok- 
hara"— rugs  is  probably  a  very  ancient  art, 
handed  down,  perhaps,  from  the  Iranians  whom 
Alexander  the  Great  found  here.  Certainly  no 
such  technic  springs  up  in  a  century  or  two.  The 
best  wool  is  selected  for  yarn,  and  it  goes  through 
ten  or  twelve  processes.  Even  the  coloring  of  the 
yarn  takes  more  than  a  year.    Before  the  invasion 


96  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

of  the  European  chemical  dyes  the  colors  were 
drawn  from  different  quarters — red  from  Bok- 
hara, blue  from  Afghanistan  and  India,  while  the 
yellow  was  made  here.  Owing  to  the  need  of 
light,  the  weaving  must  be  done  in  the  open ;  hence 
rug-making  stops  during  the  cold  season. 

The  art  is  confined  to  women,  for  a  man  will 
not  weave  a  carpet  any  more  than  a  woman  will 
tend  camels.  Every  girl  must  learn  to  weave, 
and  when  she  is  married  she  takes  with  her  all  the 
carpets  she  has  made.  The  richer  her  outfit,  the 
greater  the  bride-price  her  father  demands  for 
her.  Before  the  warp,  taut  between  stakes  in  the 
ground,  the  woman  sits,  twists  the  yarn  among  the 
threads  in  a  certain  way,  pulls  it  tight,  and  cuts 
it  off  with  a  knife.  She  draws  her  yarn  from  as 
many  balls  as  there  will  be  colors  in  the  rug. 
When  she  has  three  rows  of  tufts,  she  drives  them 
down  with  a  mallet  and  shears  them  even.  Thus, 
by  the  ends  of  knotted  yarn,  two  to  a  knot,  is  built 
up  the  marvelous  nap  that  is  the  life  of  the  rug. 
No  wonder  the  cleverest  worker  cannot  make  more 
than  one  and  one-half  square  feet  of  ordinary 
Tekke  in  a  week. 

On  the  back  of  a  rug  count  the  number  of  knots 
in  a  linear  inch.  Square  this  and  you  arrive  at  the 
number  of  knots  and  the  comparative  laborious- 
ness  of  making  carpets  of  different  grades.  A 
common  Tekke,  such  as  the  bazaar  merchant  sits 
on,  shows,  perhaps,  ten  threads  to  the  inch,  a  fine 
one  will  average  twenty,  and  the  finest  number 
twenty-five.    The  number  of  knots  to  the  square 


THE  RUG  MARKET  AT  MERV         99 

inch  will  be  as  100,  400,  and  625.  Given  the  di- 
mensions of  a  rug,  a  moment's  calculation  shows 
the  total  labor  that  has  gone  into  weaving  it. 
This  one  represents,  say,  600,000  operations  by  a 
woman's  fingers,  that  one  perhaps  a  million.  The 
native  or  Persian  rug  merchant,  with  only  his 
abacus  to  go  on,  stands  in  awe  before  exploits  with 
paper  and  pencil.  When  one  of  them  discovered 
that  in  a  minute  I  could  tell  him  the  approximate 
number  of  tyings  in  making  a  certain  carpet,  he 
brought  piece  after  piece  to  me  to  get  the  figure, 
with  the  idea,  no  doubt,  of  using  it  as  a  "  talking 
point"  in  his  business. 

The  best  Tekke  rugs  are  doubtless  the  most  ex- 
quisite fabrics  man  ever  put  under  his  foot.  The 
Persians  attempt  more  intricate  designs,  but  the 
handiwork  of  the  Tekke  Turcoman  woman  is  su- 
perior in  richness  of  color  and  velvety  softness. 
Yet  the  passion  these  lovely  things  have  inspired 
in  Americans  is  reacting  destructively  upon  the 
art.  Once  they  were  made  to  use;  now  they  are 
made  to  sell.  They  are  in  such  demand  that  the 
women  cannot  turn  them  out  fast  enough.  So 
they  buy  coal-tar  dyes  and  use  less  care  in  select- 
ing and  coloring  the  yarn.  What  is  worse,  the 
American  furore  over  these  rugs  is  cheapening  the 
breed  as  well  as  the  art.  The  Tekke  Turcomans 
are  a  tall,  strong,  handsome  race,  built  up  by  nat- 
ural selection.  But  now  their  daughters  are 
prized  as  rug-weavers,  rather  than  as  mothers  of 
men.  The  swifter  and  defter  the  girl's  fingers, 
the  higher  the  bride-price  demanded  for  her.    Not 


100  BUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

infrequently  the  father  asks  so  much  that  she  re- 
mains a  spinster  through  life.  Why  should  he 
worry  about  keeping  such  a  money-maker  in  the 
family?  Moreover,  the  rich  monopolize  most  of 
these  women,  because  only  they  can  find  the  two 
or  three  thousand  rubles  that  buys  her  and  her 
skill.  So  the  common  Turcoman  must  content 
himself  with  buying  for  a  wife  a  cheap  girl  of  a 
different  breed — Sart,  Kirghiz,  or  Tajik — who 
knows  nothing  of  rugmaking.  As  for  the  poor, 
they  go  wifeless  altogether,  so  that  a  system  of 
prostitution  has  grown  up  to  meet  their  needs. 
Thus  the  short-sighted  greed  of  the  Turcoman 
fathers  threatens  at  once  the  destruction  of  a  noble 
art  and  the  disappearance  of  a  fine  race. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  RUSSIAN  PEOPLE 

NO  people  have  such  a  quick  impulse  of  sym- 
pathy for  a  fellowman  as  the  Russians.  I 
approacli  a  cab-driver  with  the  question,  "Which 
tram-car  will  take  me  to  the  Troitzky  Bridge?" 
The  man  leans  forward  as  he  answers,  and  his 
face  fairly  blazes  with  eagerness  to  inform  me. 
If  I  ask  my  way  of  an  urchin  in  the  street,  he 
seems  to  take  real  delight  in  leading  me  to  a  cor- 
ner and  pointing  out  my  destination.  A  hand- 
some young  man  stops  me  in  a  Moscow  street  with 
a  question.  I  explain  that  I  am  a  stranger  to  the 
town,  and  his  deprecatory  gesture  and  touch  on  my 
shoulder  as  he  begs  pardon  are  so  winning  that  I 
would  go  far  out  of  my  way  to  do  him  a  good 
turn.  I  am  on  a  car  and,  the  windows  being 
frosted,  I  am  in  doubt  whether  this  stop  is  where 
I  should  get  off  for  a  certain  street  or  art  gallery. 
In  some  intuitive  way  those  about  me  have  read 
my  mind,  for  one  will  say,  "You  are  to  get  off  at 
the  second  stop,"  or  "I  leave  here,  but  this  gen- 
tleman will  see  that  you  get  off  at  the  right  place. ' ' 
Entering  a  court  in  the  evening,  I  look  about  for 
the  right  entrance  to  the  apartments,  and  in  four 
seconds  people  are  calling  to  me,  "Na  prdvo!" 
or  "Prydmo!"  ("On  your  right";  "straight 
ahead"). 

101 


102  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

The  Russian  mind  is  not  superior  to  other  minds 
in  catching  an  idea,  but  in  reading  human  beings 
it  has  genius,  in  this  respect  resembling  the  Celts 
rather  than  the  Germans  or  Anglo-Saxons.  I  am 
told  that  foreigners  prefer  Russian  servants,  even 
ignorant  peasants,  because  of  their  quickness  in 
apprehending  one's  wishes.  This  may  be  why 
illiterate  servant-girls  and  factory-hands  are  as 
deeply  moved  by  the  reading  of,  say,  "King  Lear" 
as  our  cultivated  people.  It  has  been  found  bet- 
ter not  to  read  these  simple  people  Lamb's  "Tales 
from  Shakespere,"  or  other  waterings,  but  to  give 
them  the  master  himself.  In  the  same  way,  the 
humble  have  a  gift  for  understanding  the  meaning 
of  paintings  and  dramas.  Again,  who  is  more  apt 
in  interpreting  a  character  than  a  Russian  player, 
or  more  soothing  to  the  sick  than  a  conscientious 
Russian  nurse? 

The  people  are  so  gregarious  that  drays  go 
through  the  streets  in  a  long  file,  perhaps  a  dozen 
at  a  time,  although  this  means  much  waiting  for 
others  to  load  or  unload  and  fewer  trips  than  if 
each  cart  went  by  itself.  It  is  said  that  when 
tram-cars  were  first  introduced  into  Russia  they 
went  in  a  file,  with  a  very  long  interval  between 
files! 

Ladies  of  the  American  colony  in  Petrograd 
dwell  on  the  gentleness  of  the  big,  ignorant  fel- 
lows who  are  taken  care  of  in  their  hospital  for 
the  wounded.  They  expect  little,  and  are  intensely 
appreciative  of  whatever  is  done  for  them.  The 
Russians  are  easy  on  children,  and  it  is  said  that 


f 


A  shoemaker  of  Askhabad 


THE  EUSSIAN  PEOPLE  105 

the  peasants  make  pets  of  their  pigs  and  cattle  and 
that  they  keep  many  dogs.  If  they  work  their 
horses  hard,  it  is  usually  because  they  must.  The 
arching  bow  over  the  shaft-horse,  so  characteristic 
of  Russian  vehicles,  is  a  humane  device  that  keeps 
the  collar  from  chafing  the  horse 's  neck. 

How  is  one  to  reconcile  this  attitude  with  the 
many  brutalities  of  the  soldiers,  such  as  tossing 
their  officers  on  the  points  of  their  bayonets  and 
beating  to  death  station-masters  who  oppose  their 
wishes.  In  the  retreat  from  Eiga  fleeing  soldiers 
would  stop  ambulances,  throw  out  the  wounded, 
fill  the  vehicles  with  their  plunder,  and  drive  off. 
Some  troopers,  indeed,  loaded  their  horses  so 
heavily  with  loot  that  the  horse  that  stumbled 
could  not  get  up  again,  and  the  trooper  would  be 
ridden  over  by  those  behind.  In  the  provinces  of 
Tula,  Tambov,  Orel,  and  Simbirsk  last  autumn  the 
country-places  of  entire  districts  were  wrecked, 
and  often  the  peasants  in  their  insane  fury,  in- 
stead of  appropriating  the  landowner's  livestock, 
would  destroy  them  or  torture  them.  They 
would  hamstring  horses,  cut  out  the  tongues  of 
sheep,  or  cut  off  the  udders  of  cows!  Some  of 
this  is  due  to  rage,  long  pent-up.  The  Russians 
are  proverbially  patient,  and  there  is  a  saying  that 
fits  them:  ''Beware  the  fury  of  a  patient  man." 
But  the  chief  explanation  is  one  that  has  never 
been  invoked  by  the  many  commentators  on  Rus- 
sian revolutionary  excesses,  because  they  are  igno- 
rant of  social  psychology.  I  refer  to  the  iwMa- 
tiveness   of   people   in   a   crowd.    Like   all  un- 


106  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

developed  peoples,  the  Russians  are  excessively 
suggestible.  I  even  heard  of  a  mental  disorder, 
not  infrequent  in  northeastern  Siberia  and  known 
as  meriatchenja,  which  obliges  the  victim  to  repeat 
what  is  done  or  said  before  him.  Indeed,  there 
is  a  diverting  tale  of  a  captain  who  came  out  to 
take  charge  of  a  company  at  Yakutsk.  He 
greeted  them  with  a  " Good-morning,  my  lads," 
expecting  the  customary  reply,  "We  wish  your 
high-born  health. ' '  Instead,  back  came  the  greet- 
ing, "Good-morning,  my  lads."  Thinking  they 
were  mocking  him,  he  cursed  and  threatened. 
His  curses  and  threats  were  promptly  flung  back 
in  his  face,  until  some  one  happened  along  and 
explained  that  the  "lads"  had  become  a  little 
queer  from  the  climate. 

Now,  it  may  be  that  nine-tenths  of  those 
who  take  part  in  atrocities  would  not  initiate 
them  or  commit  them  as  individuals.  But  in  a 
crowd  they  fall  into  a  kind  of  trance  and  without 
moral  responsibility  do  whatever  they  see  others 
do. 

Russian  militarism  was  an  alien  thing  of  Prus- 
sian origin,  imposed  on  a  people  of  a  pacific  na- 
ture. Said  a  Lutheran  pastor:  "Ask  a  Prus- 
sian, 'Are  you  a  soldier?'  and  he  proudly  answers, 
'Yes.'  Ask  a  Russian,  and  he  replies,  'Yes,  God 
be  thanked,  I  'm  done  with  my  military  service. 
It  was  time  wasted.'  "  For  thirty  years  that  im- 
perial drill-master,  Nicholas  I,  painted  the  Slavic 
lath  to  look  like  iron  and  had  Europe  awed,  but 
the  Crimean  War  revealed  the  hollowness  of  his 


THE  RUSSIAN  PEOPLE  107 

system.  The  fact  is  that  no  white  people  is  less 
moved  by  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  war  than 
the  Russians.  Indeed,  the  pugnacious  instinct 
seems  far  less  lively  in  them  than  in  us.  An 
American  commercial  traveler  of  five  years'  ex- 
perience in  Russia  remarked  last  July:  "I  have 
seen  less  disorder  here  in  three  months  of  revo- 
lution than  I  witnessed  in  the  United  States  dur- 
ing the  free  silver  campaign  of  1896."  In  going 
about  during  a  time  of  great  agitation  I  heard 
many  heated  discussions,  but  I  never  saw  a 
fist  doubled  or  a  blow  struck.  Despite  the 
crowded  condition  of  the  trains  and  the  acute  dis- 
comforts of  travel,  travelers  remain  patient  and 
polite.  There  is  no  squabbling  over  rights  of 
priority.  Each  accepts  meekly  what  others  yield 
to  him,  and  the  others  seem  to  yield  him  as  much 
as  they  can.  They  are  far  less  aggressive  and  in- 
sistent on  their  rights  than  Americans. 

"How  about  the  Cossack?"  some  one  will  gibe. 
"There  's  a  militarized  man  for  you!"  The  fact 
is,  the  Cossack  is  no  monster  of  ruthlessness,  but 
just  a  frontier  farm-lad  who  cannot  read  and  who 
has  been  trained  to  be  a  soldier  in  return  for  a 
farm.  He  was  a  ready  tool  of  despotism,  just  as 
a  regiment  of  Montana  cow-boys  who  could  not 
read  would  be  a  facile  instrument  of  capitalism 
if  projected  into  a  Pittsburgh  labor-conflict. 
Reared  far  from  estates  and  factories  and  ex- 
ploitation, he  saw  in  revolutionary  unrest  nothing 
but  the  disobedience  of  subjects  to  their  rightful 
master.    Now  that  his  eyes  are  open,  the  Cossack 

( 


108  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

is  astounded  at  the  role  he  was  made  to  play. 

Agents  for  American  farm-machinery  agree 
that  the  moujlJcs  are  hard-headed  and  hard-bitted. 
They  are  cautious,  and  look  before  they  leap. 
By  a  flow  of  persuasive  language  you  can  neither 
move  them  to  action  nor  stop  them  from  acting. 
Said  one  agent:  "They  've  got  to  be  'shown.' 
Selling  is  difficult,  unless  your  goods  have  unques- 
tionable superiority.  You  can't  hypnotize  your 
man  with  fancy  talk  and  then  get  his  order  by 
handing  him  a  fountain-pen,  pointing  to  the  dotted 
line  and  saying,  'Sign  here.'  "  Another  agent 
contrasted  Eussia  with  Argentina,  "where  sell- 
ing farm-implements  is  easy — a  matter  of  a  bottle 
of  wine  and  a  couple  of  good  stories." 

This  serious-mindedness  and  depth  is  probably 
a  product  of  the  savage  Eussian  winter.  For 
generations  these  people  have  been  exposed  to  its 
eliminations,  and  the  scatterbrain,  frivolous  in- 
dividuals, who  failed  to  look  ahead  to  winter  or 
who  lacked  the  persistence  and  self-control  to  pro- 
vide themselves  always  with  a  tight  shelter  and  a 
store  of  food,  fuel,  and  clothing,  were  weeded  out 
long  ago,  leaving  no  offspring  to  perpetrate  their 
lightmindedness.  It  is  the  tropics  that  permit 
survival  of  the  unreflective  folk  who  dance  and 
sing  without  thought  for  the  morrow. 

On  the  other  hand,  some  blame  the  long  winters 
for  the  laziness  of  the  peasant.  In  the  "rush" 
season  he  is  a  fierce  worker ;  but  he  does  not  keep 
chores  for  a  rainy  day  or  a  dull  season  in  farm- 
ing.   Between  whiles  he  is  utterly  idle,  and  the 


THE  RUSSIAN  PEOPLE  111 

resulting  habits  may  taint  his  character.  I  have 
heard  of  villages  so  indolent  that  when  a  house 
catches  fire  the  neighbors  will  do  nothing  to  save 
it. 

The  faces  of  the  crowd  on  the  dock  at  Vladivo- 
stok— the  first  Russians  I  had  seen  en  masse — 
made  a  painful  impression.  Five  out  of  six  are 
dull,  unlit,  the  mouth  a  little  open,  the  eyes 
asquint  and  peering,  as  if  vainly  trying  to  under- 
stand what  they  see.  Rare  is  the  alert,  compre- 
hending look  of  the  American  dock-laborer.  The 
Japanese  toilers  seem  much  more  awake.  Look- 
ing at  these  poor  fellows  who  have  been  deliber- 
ately kept  in  darkness  by  their  government  when 
mind-lighting  is  so  cheap,  I  perceive  where  the 
roughs  of  the  "black  hundreds"  are  recruited. 
Fill  such  ignorant  men  with  whiskey  and  lies,  and 
they  are  capable  of  any  atrocity. 

Surveying  a  Russian  crowd,  you  are  struck  by 
the  rarity  of  eye-glasses;  not  over  one  in  sixty 
or  seventy  needs  aid  to  vision.  You  are  puzzled 
until  you  remember  the  small  number  of  readers 
among  the  masses.  In  the  cities  the  provision- 
shops  hang  out  the  image  of  a  sheep,  a  fish,  or  a 
loaf,  or  decorate  themselves  with  frescoes  of 
cheese,  eggs,  meats,  and  fruits,  in  order  to  guide 
the  unlettered  servant-girls  and  the  poor.  In  the 
"hut"  our  Y.  M.  C.  A.  maintains  for  Russian 
soldiers  every  sign  has  its  companion  picture  for 
the  benefit  of  the  illiterate.  "Wipe  your  feet"  is 
accompanied  by  a  sketch  of  a  pair  of  boots. 
"Tea,  3  kopecks"  has  a  drawing  of  a  glass  of  tea 


112  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

and  three  small  coins.  ^jnan_xeading  aloud  a 
placard  or  a  newspaper  to  those  who  cannot  read 
is  a  common  sight  in  the  streets.  In  hospitals  the 
convalescents  are  taught  to  read,  and  you  will 
see  a  big,  whiskered  man  with  the  sweat  running 
down  his  face  in  the  anguish  of  his  efforts  to  spell 
out  the  meaning  of  the  simplest  words!  About 
ten  years  ago  the  Russian  census  reported  83 
per  cent,  of  illiterates  above  nine  years  of  age, 
and  this  figure  is  still  given,  even  by  Russian  pro- 
fessors. But,  thanks  to  the  Zemstvo  schools,  the 
rising  generation  is  better  off,  and  only  a  third 
of  the  recruits  are  illiterate.  It  is  probable  that 
at  least  two  fifths  of  all  the  adults  in  Russia  are 
able  to  read. 

^"The  printed  word  is  the  sun  that  illuminates  the 
world  for  us.  Limited  to  his  eyes  and  the  spoken 
word,  the  Russian  peasant  is  like  a  man  with  a 
lantern  who  can  see  only  four  paces  about  him. 
This  is  why  peasants  whose  heads  are  screwed  on 
right  will,  nevertheless,  burn  the  crops  in  the  fields 
of  the  experiment-station  which  some  of  the  great 
estates  maintain  for  the  purpose  of  showing  their 
farmers — and  the  peasants  as  well — how  to  get 
more  out  of  the  soil ;  also  why  they  will  tear  down 
the  village  school-house,  deeming  it  a  useless  thing. 
One  will  take  the  boards  for  his  cow-house, 
another  the  bricks  for  his  chimney,  and  a  third 
the  windows  for  his  cabin. 

In  the  workmen  one  comes  at  times  upon  the 
petty  cunning  of  the  slave.  An  American  man- 
ager told  me  how,  in  their  conferences  with  him, 


THE  RUSSIAN  PEOPLE  113 

they  will  keep  tab,  and  if  he  restates  his  thought  in 
different  language,  they  catch  him  up  eagerly, 
"Ah,  but  you  said  thus  and  so  last  week!"  They 
note  a  change  of  words  and  imagine  he  has  changed 
his  position.    It  is  pitiful. 

Until  the  lamp  has  been  turned  up  awhile,  one 
must  not  be  surprised  to  come  upon  childish  po- 
litical ideas.  Thus,  an  old  peasant  after  listen- 
ing to  an  orator  commented,  "Yes,  it  '11  be  fine 
to  have  a  constitution  and  a  republic,  provided  al- 
ways that  they  give  us  a  wise  tsar."  A  member 
of  the  Duma  tells  of  going  down  to  his  home  in  the 
country  and  meeting  there  a  friend  of  his,  a  fine 
young  peasant,  who  had  been  in  the  Kronstadt 
revolt.  He  said,  ' '  What  are  you  doing  down  here 
— you,  a  sailor  in  a  sailor's  uniform?"  The  peas- 
ant parried  with  the  stock  phrases  of  the  Bol- 
sheviki — how  the  war  was  started  by  the  capital- 
ists and  how  the  capitalists  were  sucking  the  peo- 
ple's blood.  But  as  his  friend  continued  to  look 
fixedly  at  him,  he  fell  on  his  knees,  covered 
his  face  with  his  hands,  and  sobbed,  "0  Nicholai 
Andreevitch,  these  things  were  told  me,  but  I  am 
so  ignorant  that  I  don't  really  know  what  it  all 
means!" 

All  the  six  presidents  of  Councils  of  Workmen 's 
and  Soldiers'  Delegates  I  talked  with  were  in- 
telligent men,  but  one  of  them,  a  mechanical  en- 
gineer, a  graduate  of  a  German  technical  school, 
and  with  three  years'  experience  in  America,  said : 
"My  constituents  are  two  regiments  of  soldiers 
and  about  600  workmen.    But  the  workmen  lack 


114  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

the  intelligence  to  use  their  new-won  liberty  so 
as  to  benefit  themselves.  They  become  so  discon- 
tented with  their  delegates,  who  understand  how 
impossible  it  is  that  the  workmen  should  have 
all  that  they  ask,  that  sometimes  they  murder 
these  delegates." 

The  masses  realize  their  lack,  and  this  accounts 
for  their  passion  for  listening  to  the  speeches, 
which  so  amused  foreign  observers  of  the  revolu- 
tion. It  is  true  that  many  would  spend  all  of  Sun- 
day going  from  one  meeting  to  another,  and  then 
pass  every  evening  quaffing  the  heady  wine  of  dis- 
cussion. No  wonder  they  were  intoxicated.  They 
were  called  upon  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives 
to  make  up  their  minds  as  new-fledged  citizens, 
and  this  is  why  they  spent  so  much  time  at  meet- 
ings. They  were  trying  to  equip  themselves  in 
a  few  months  with  the  political  convictions  that 
the  citizen  of  a  free  country  has  been  accumulat- 
ing ever  since  he  was  a  boy.  It  is  from  lack  of 
such  ballast  that  sometimes  a  crowd  would  ap- 
plaud unanimously  the  fiery  exhortations  of  an 
orator  and,  a  few  minutes  later,  cheer  with  equal 
heartiness  his  opponent  who  expressed  diametri- 
cally opposite  opinions ! 

General  Kornilof  told  of  a  regiment  on  the 
front  that  was  so  impressed  with  the  "separate 
peace"  idea  that  they  formally  drew  up  a  treaty 
with  the  Germans  opposite  them,  agreeing  to  give 
up  the  sector  they  held  and  to  pay  the  Germans 
two  hundred  rubles  apiece!    Another  side-light 


THE  RUSSIAN  PEOPLE  115 

is  the  incident  recounted  by  Bratiano,  Prime  Min- 
ister of  Rumania. 

Last  August  a  Russian  regiment,  at  the  cost  of 
considerable  losses,  made  itself  master  of  an  im- 
portant strategic  height  on  the  Galician  front  and 
threw  back  the  Germans  into  a  valley  seven  miles 
away.  "While  they  were  fortifying  themselves 
German  envoys  arrived  and  asked  to  speak  to  the 
committee  of  the  regiment. 

" Well,  what  is  it!" 

"Why,  comrades,  you  aren't  dealing  fairly 
with  us.  The  Russian  democracy  has  come  out 
against  annexations,  hasn't  it?" 

"Certainly." 

"Nevertheless,  you  have  just  occupied  Austrian 
territory  to  a  depth  of  seven  miles,  have  n't  you?" 

"Yes,  that  's  true,"  responded  the  committee 
meditatively. 

So  a  meeting  of  the  regiment  was  convoked  and 
it  was  voted  to  abandon  the  position,  because  it 
involved  annexation.  Deaf  to  the  pleadings  of 
the  officers  and  unmindful  of  the  fact  that  Germany 
was  holding  tens  of  thousands  of  square  miles  of 
Russia,  the  simple-minded  Russians  retired  from 
the  ridge  that  had  cost  so  much  blood.  Two  hours 
later  the  Germans  occupied  it  and  proceeded  to 
fortify  it  to  the  utmost. 

To  look  for  a  national  consciousness  among  a 
people  who  have  no  mental  image  of  Russia,  never 
saw  a  map  of  the  world,  and  could  not  locate  their 
country  on  such  a  map,  would  be  folly.    There 


116  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

is  a  tale  of  how  a  number  of  Russian  soldiers  who 
were  running  away  last  autumn  from  the  enemy 's 
advance  were  stopped  by  an  officer  with  the  ques- 
tion, "Do  you  want  to  let  the  Germans  have  this 
province?"  One  replied,  "But  I  am  from  Sa- 
mara." Another  said,  "I  am  from  Siberia,"  and 
so  on.  Their  patriotism  was  local,  not  national. 
In  another  case  a  fugitive,  reproached  for  letting 
the  Germans  draw  nearer  Petrograd,  replied, 
"Oh,  they  're  a  long  way  from  my  village."  A 
deserter  was  chided,  "So  you  don't  care  whether 
our  capital  or  even  Holy  Moscow  itself  falls  into 
German  hands!"  "What  difference  will  it  make 
tome?"  was  his  answer.  ' '  I  live  in  Astrakhan ! ' ' 
Formerly  the  Russian  masses  were  held  to  their 
duty  to  the  nation  by  certain  instincts  and  habits 
associated  with  "God  and  Tsar. ' '  Now  that  these 
ideas  have  broken  down  before  the  idea  of  "my 
country"  has  formed  itself  in  their  minds,  they 
run  the  risk,  which,  as  Darwin  pointed  out,  any 
creature  runs  in  passing  from  the  guidance  of  in- 
stinct to  that  of  consciousness. 

The  Russian  is  one_of  .the joa.oat Jtqjerant of  be- 
ings. A  certain  booklet  prints  the  Lord's  Prayer 
in  each  of  the  languages  spoken  within  the  empire, 
and  the  number  is  103;  yet  the  Russian  can  get 
along  with  all  these  peoples,  if  only  he  is  left  to 
follow  his  own  good  instincts.  The  anti-Jewish 
pogroms  have  not  been  spontaneous,  but  have 
been  stirred  up  by  designing  persons  or  officials. 
Said  a  Jewish  leader:  "Even  the  champions  of 
government  anti-Semitism  admit  always  that  there 


THE  RUSSIAN  PEOPLE  117 

are  some  Jews  whom  they  love  and  trust.  Ignat- 
yef,  for  example,  while  launching  his  persecutive 
measures,  renewed  the  contracts  with  the  Jews  on 
his  estates. ' '  Neither  he  nor  other  Jewish  spokes- 
men confessed  any  anxiety  lest  a  popular  anti- 
Semitism  spring  up.  One  never  hears  of  Mo- 
hammedans having  trouble  with  the  Russians 
about  religion.  In  the  Tatar  quarter  of  Kazan, 
within  a  stone's  throw  of  a  mosque  bearing  a 
golden  crescent  at  the  point  of  its  slender  minaret, 
is  an  Orthodox  Church,  each  of  its  three  towers 
bearing  a  cross  above  the  crescent.  One  may  be 
sure,  however,  that  this  provocative  symbol  was 
set  there  by  a  priest,  not  by  the  people.  So,  too, 
the  persecution  of  dissenting  sects  is  inspired  by 
the  machine  of  the  Orthodox  Church,  not  by  its 
laity.  The  secret  of  the  wonderful  solvent  power 
of  the  Russians  upon  the  Babel  of  peoples  and 
races  they  have  met  in  their  expansion  is  their 
large-hearted  toleration  of  alien  ways  and  faiths. 
The  steam-roller  methods  of  Pobyedonostzef  and 
other  violent  Russifiers  interrupted,  unfortun- 
ately, the  quiet,  natural  process  that  was  knitting 
up  Poles,  Armenians,  Ukrainians,  Letts,  and  Jews 
with  the  Russians,  and  that  would  in  the  end  have 
assimilated  all  but  the  Finns  and  the  Germans, 
who  warm  their  hands  at  other  fire's. 

This  tolerance  is  that,  of  ^,Tj_jndTyjdn^TTst_whn 
wants  to  b&Jet-alone  himself 1jjnjcLwhn  jjigrjfnrft 
>athizes  with  the  other  fellow's  desire  to  be 


is  is  all  very  well  in  most  matters, 
too  far,  it  interferes  ^with "society 's 


leJLjdone?    T 
but,  carried" 


118  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

control  over  the  conduct  of  its  members  on  behalf 
of  the  general  welfare.  Russian  jurors  are  too 
much  inclined  to  let  the  malefactor  off,  and  do 
not  see  in  him  a  menace  to  society.  Since  Dos- 
toievsky there  has  been  a  maudlin  toleration  of 
the  criminal,  as  if  the  poor  fellow  were  a  victim, 
rather  than  a  trampler  on  other  men's  rights. 
Russian  merchants  whose  practices  are  honorable 
are  slow  to  condemn  the  shady  ways  of  a  fellow- 
merchant.  The  trader  who  refuses  to  fill  his  con- 
tract when  the  price  of  the  goods  has  unexpectedly 
risen  will  hardly  be  boycotted  by  his  fellows,  as  he 
ought  to  be.  In  other  words,  the  Russians  are 
over-charitable  with  the  wrong-doer,  and  hence 
fail  to  brace  one  another  morally,  as  they  might. 
Too  sympathetic  to  draw  the  line  sharply  against 
those  less  upright  than  themselves,  they  ig- 
norantly  throw  away  one  great  lever  of  moral 
progress.  Nevertheless,  they  are  all  the  more  de- 
lightful personally,  for  they  are  free  from  the 
hypocrisy  and  Phariseeism  that  so  readily  infect 
a  Puritanic  society. 

The  Russians '  over-wide  tolerance  is  partly  due 
to  lack  of  standards.  Did  they  apply  definite 
standards  to  themselves,  they  could  not  help  ap- 
plying them  also  to  the  other  man.  The  masses 
lack  economic  standards,  i.  e.,  a  standard  of  de-^ 
cency  or  standard  of  comfort,  such  as  rules  most 
American  rural  communities.  They  lack  moral 
standards,  e.  g.,  the  average  peasant  is  a  free  and 
artistic  liar,  while  men  and  women  conduct  them- 
selves pretty  much  as  they  please,  with  little 


A  Turcoman,  Cieok  Tepe 


1/*$^"^^ 


THE  EUSSIAN  PEOPLE  121 

heed  to  marriage  vows.  There  is  little  sign  of  the 
existence  of  hygienic  standards.  One  notes  the 
tendency  toward  excess  in  eating  and  drinking, 
the  neglect  of  systematic  exercise,  the  shutting  out 
of  fresh  air,  and  the  irregular  habit  of  life.  The 
American  dining-car  serves  meals  at  stated  times, 
whereas  the  Russian  "  restaurant-car ' *  caters  all 
day  and  half  the  night.  Much  more  than  with  us, 
circumstance  and  whim  determine  the  time  of  go- 
ing to  bed  or  getting  up.  Here  may  be  the  ex- 
planation why  Russians  often  age  early  and  why 
the  peasant  at  forty  considers  himself  "old." 

Again,  the  educated  classes  are  little  ruled  by 
intellectual  standards.  Not  often  are  their  <^  u, 
scholars  mastered  by  the  ideal  of  continuous  ad- 
vancement and  unflagging  scientific  productivity. 
After  he  has  "arrived,"  the  professional  man  en- 
gages no  further  in  research.  Successful  doctors 
do  not  read  much  medical  literature.  Mendel- 
yeef,  the  discoverer  of  the  immortal  "Periodic 
Law"  in  chemistry,  did  little  the  last  thirty  years 
of  his  life  but  expertize.  It  is  said  that  when 
a  famous  Russian  chemist,  author  of  a  classic  text 
on  his  subject,  died,  an  English  chemist  attended 
the  auction  of  his  library,  hoping  to  pick  up  rare 
works  or  scarce  volumes  of  chemical  journals. 
To  his  disgust,  he  found  that  the  library  consisted 
of  text-books  on  chemistry. 

In  other  words,  the  virtues  of  the  Russians  are  to 
be  credited  to  the  goodness  of  their  nature,  rather 
than  to  their  acquired  standards.  In  the  language 
of  an  American  long  resident  in  Russia:   "It 


122  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

seems  as  if  this  race  has  in  some  mysterious  way 
fallen  heir  to  the  chief  Christian  virtues,  save 
chastity.  They  are  kindly,  forgiving,  tolerant, 
and  charitable. ' '  When  talking  with  Lutheran 
pastors  who  insisted  that  the  moujlks  were  super- 
stitious, but  not  religious,  I  asked,  "How  about 
their  kindliness  and  brotherlinessr'  the  reply 
would  come,  "Oh,  that  's  a  matter  of  race,  rather 
of  indwelling  Christian  spirit. ' ' 

It  is  a  discernment  of  these  precious  traits  in 
the  Eussian  nature  that  causes  all  Americans  who 
know  them  well  to  prophesy  a  great  future  for  the 
Eussians  after  they  have  come  into  their  own. 
We  recognize  that  in  some  ways  their  instincts 
are  better  adapted  to  a  cooperative  and  democratic 
social  order  than  are  ours.  But  just  at  this  point 
appears  a  significant  divergence  of  opinion  be- 
tween American  and  German  observers  of  Eussia. 
All  the  educated  Germans  I  sounded,  from  Cour- 
land  landlords  to  Lutheran  pastors  along  the 
Volga,  harped  on  the  low  state  of  culture  among 
the  Eussian  masses  and  their  anarchic  tendency, 
called  for  a  firm  hand  to  hold  them  in,  and  pre- 
dicted that  an  immense  time  would  elapse  before 
they  could  attain  the  strength  of  character,  steadi- 
ness of  purpose,  and  capacity  for  self-determina- 
tion of  West  Europeans.  Generally,  "two  or 
three  centuries"  of  tutelage  was  deemed  neces- 
sary. On  the  contrary,  Americans  with  equally 
full  knowledge  of  the  people  attribute  their  back- 
wardness to  specific  and  recently  operative 
causes,  such  as  isolation,  autocracy,  serfdom,  ig- 


THE  RUSSIAN  PEOPLE  123 

norance,  and  the  communal  system.  They  antici- 
pate that  under  good  conditions  the  mentality  of 
the  masses  may  be  speedily  improved,  and  they 
never  put  off  the  date  of  " arrival"  of  the  Rus- 
sians later  than  the  end  of  this  century. 

Now,  the  latter  opinion  tallies  closely  with  that 
of  science.  No  doubt  nineteen  out  of  twenty 
French  or  American  sociologists — the  acknowl- 
edged leaders  in  this  branch — would  agree  that  if 
Russians  are  vouchsafed  a  peaceful,  democratic 
development  and  speedily  employ  on  a  great  scale 
such  agencies  as  private  property  in  land,  free  in- 
stitutions, schools,  and  libraries,  their  great 
grandchildren  may  attain  any  level  of  culture  now 
in  the  world.  Why,  then,  do  the  Germans  alone 
insist  that  it  will  take  the  Russians  centuries  to 
"catch  up"!  Simply  because  it  has  been  the 
policy  of  the  ruling  element  in  Germany  to  en- 
courage the  type  of  social  philosophy  that  makes 
a  backward  people  distrusted  by  itself  and  by  the 
world. 

Russia  has  been  Germany's  farm.  She  has 
been  against  the  emancipation  of  the  masses  there, 
because  she  wishes  to  preserve  in  Russia  the  wid- 
est possible  field  for  German  merchants,  techni- 
cians, opticians,  pharmacists,  managers,  and  en- 
gineers ;  also  she  desires  a  field  for  German  wares 
and  the  investment  of  German  capital.  Anything 
she  can  do  to  discourage  Russians  and  to  deter 
them  from  adopting  the  institutions  that  quickly 
raise  a  backward  people  prolongs  her  farming  of 
them.    In  a  word,  the  Kultur  theory  put  forth  by 


124  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

Germany's  professors  and  publicists  in  the 
name  of  science  is  but  a  special  poison  gas  1 

Coming  to  the  upper  part  of  the  social  scale,  it 
is  clearly  apparent  that  it  has  modelled  itself  on 
the  land-owning  nobility.  For  example,  the  bu- 
reaucrats and  intellectuals  work  between  ten 
o'clock  and  three,  and  then  dine.  Thus  five  or 
six  hours  of  work  suffices  for  the  professional  and 
governmental  men,  so  that  in  provision  for  free 
time  and  late  hours  their  scheme  of  life  is  pat- 
terned upon  that  of  the  hereditary  leisure  class,  in- 
stead of,  as  with  us,  arising  out  of  their  experi- 
ence. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  up  to  the 
revolution  the  enlightened  class  was  seriously 
hampered  in  its  cultural  development.  Under 
autocracy  there  existed  in  private  an  extraordi- 
nary freedom  to  criticize  the  Government.  It  was 
only  when  you  tried  to  bring  your  criticisms  to  the 
attention  of  any  portion  of  the  great,  dark,  ex- 
ploited mass — the  people — that  you  got  into 
trouble.  Within  the  governing  element  itself  the 
most  intense  oppositions  developed,  and  in  gov- 
ernment reports  one  can  find  abundant  material 
to  prove  the  extent  of  misgovernment,  corruption, 
and  brutality.  Struggles  were  constantly  going 
on  between  bureau-chiefs,  ministers,  or  groups  of 
ministers,  and  investigating  committees  were  de- 
lighted to  expose  the  wrongdoing  or  inefficiency 
of  this  or  that  branch  of  administration.  No 
baleful  regime  ever  left  better  materials  for  its 
own  indictment  than  did  the  autocracy.    But  all 


> 
a 


- 

5 


A  Caucasian  Highlander  of  Scottish  type 


THE  RUSSIAN  PEOPLE  127 

this  damning  information  was  for  the  exclusive 
use  of  the  upper  two  or  three  per  cent,  of  the  popu- 
lation. To  communicate  it  to  the  general  public 
was  held  to  be  as  reckless  as  to  throw  lighted 
matches  into  a  powder-magazine.  Hence  the 
newspaper  that  circulated  facts  published  in  an 
official  document  by  some  board  of  investigation 
would  be  suppressed  for  dangerous  agitation ! 

The  educated  class  is  extremely  individualistic, 
not  in  sentiments,  but  in  method  of  action.  Lack- 
ing practice  in  association,  they  have  never  learned 
the  lesson  of  compromise.  Moreover,  they  looked 
to  the  Government  to  do  whatever  needed  doing, 
and  never  formed  the  habit  of  combining  to  do  it 
themselves.  I  noticed  in  December  that  the  higher 
class  felt  keenly  the  shameful  plight  of  their  coun- 
try in  respect  to  its  obligations  to  its  allies,  but 
they  were  always  canvassing  the  possibilities  of 
the  English,  the  French,  or  the  Americans  com- 
ing to  save  them  from  the  rule  of  the  "dark"  peo- 
ple, instead  of  considering  what  they  might  do 
themselves.  In  self-reliance,  initiative,  and  en- 
ergy of  will  they  were  by  no  means  as  advanced 
as  in  cultivation.  An  eminent  educator  said  to 
me,  "Our  upper  classes  are  educated  intellectu- 
ally, but  not  physically,  morally,  and  socially." 

The  dearth  of  able  men  in  this  year  of  crisis  is, 
no  doubt,  due  in  part  to  the  fact  that  the  old  re- 
gime was  unfavorable  to  the  wide  development 
of  organizing  and  directive  ability.  Govern- 
ment was  the  monopoly  of  a  comparatively  small 
number,  who  insisted  that  governing  is  a  mysteri- 


128  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

ous  operation  not  at  all  within  the  range  of  ordi- 
nary intelligence. 

Barred  from  responsible  social  and  political 
work,  the  intellectuals  gain  the  habit  of  working 
out  most  elaborate  paper  plans  for  everything 
they  undertake.  They  create  wheels  within 
wheels,  and  then  wheels  within  these  wheels. 
They  are  not  content  to  let  an  organization  de- 
velop little  by  little,  as  experience  hints,  but  want 
to  work  it  all  out  in  advance  and  begin  with  a  com- 
plete structure.  The  result  is  lack  of  coordina- 
tion and  loss  of  time.  Wailed  a  Y.  M.  0.  A.  of- 
ficer in  Petrograd,  "I  Ve  gained  the  assent  of 
every  committee  and  every  authority  to  our  occu- 
pation of  the  M — y  palace,  but  still  somehow  I  do 
not  get  the  palace." 

Denied  the  opportunity  to  apply  to  ideas  the 
test  of  practice,  the  Russian  intellectuals  gave 
rein  to  their  bent  for  the  newest  ideas.  Just  be- 
cause Russia  was  looked  upon  as  a  backward 
country,  they  felt  in  honor  bound  to  keep  up  with 
the  latest  fashions  in  social  reforms.  They  felt 
they  must  make  up  for  the  ignorance  and  super- 
stition of  the  people  by  themselves  being  models 
of  rationality  and  progressiveness.  Before  the 
middle  of  the  last  century  Russian  disciples  of 
Fourier  planned  to  reorganize  their  country  on 
communistic  lines,  and  nowhere  has  Karl  Marx 
dominated  the  opinion  of  the  educated  as  he  does 
in  Russia.  In  vain  does  one  plead  the  necessity 
of  following  the  upward  path  that  has  been  trodden 
by  more  advanced  peoples  like  the  Americans  and 


THE  RUSSIAN  PEOPLE  129 

the  Swiss.  No,  the  Kussian  people  shall  squeeze 
our  century  of  democratic  evolution  into  a  few 
months  and  leap  at  a  bound  from  absolutism  to 
the  proletarian  dictatorship.  — *» 

Because  the  British  speak  the  same  language 
as  we  do,  read  the  same  masterpieces,  and  inherit 
a  few  common  political  traditions,  we  look  to  them 
for  our  closest  national  friendship,  forgetting  that 
the  British  are  insular,  imperial,  and  industrial, 
whereas  we  are  continental,  federal,  and  agricul- 
tural. Ought  we  not  rather  to  discern  in  the 
many  similarities  between  the  Russian  people  and 
the  American  people  the  natural  foundation  for 
our  firmest  friendship?  ''In  both  countries  agri- 
culture leads  and  rural  life  predominates,  al- 
though, of  course,  Russia  is  far  more  rural  than 
the  United  States.  Both  people  are  accustomed 
to  grapple  with  rude  Nature,  have  a  frontier,  and 
have  had  to  contend  with  wild  animals  and  savage 
races.  Both  are  subject  to  a  continental  climate, 
and  the  sharpest  contrasts  they  experience  are 
in  seasons,  rather  than  in  scenery.  In  both  coun- 
tries land  is  cheap,  streets  and  roads  are  wide 
and  little  improved,  and  towns  sprawl.  Both 
Americans  and  Russians  are  used  to  space  and 
vast  horizons,  think  in  large  units,  and  overlook 
fine  distinctions.  Both  are  easy-going,  demo- 
cratic, and  familiar.  Neither  has  known  feudal- 
ism and  the  caste  sense  it  inspires.  Neither  has 
grown  up  amid  historical  buildings  and  monu- 
ments, nor  feels  much  reverence  for  the  past.  In- 
dividual Americans  and  individual  Russians  have 


130  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

always  found  themselves  drawn  toward  one 
another,  and  now  that  such  stumbling  blocks  as 
autocracy,  a  state  church,  and  a  landed  nobility  are 
removed,  why  should  not  the  two  peoples  feel  the 
pull  of  sympathy  and  become  like  brothers?  To 
be  sure,  Americans  have  realized  more  of  their 
possibilities,  better  understood  organization,  dis- 
cipline, and  efficiency,  are  more  at  home  with  free 
institutions,  and  have  gone  further  in  steadying 
their  impulses  by  standards.  They  might  be  to 
the  Russians  like  an  older  brother  who  is  wiser  in 
the  particular  things  the  gifted  younger  brother 
is  trying  to  learn.  / 


<  On  the  road  to  Hindoo    Kush  Turkestan 


Street  seller,  Bokhara 


CHAPTER  VII 

SOIL  HUNGER  AND  THE  LAND 
QUESTION 

IN  Siberia,  east  of  Lake  Baikal,  the  life  of  the 
pioneer  is  fresh  and  sweet,  like  the  young 
grass  of  April.  In  midsummer  the  valley  of  the 
Ingoda  unreels  a  film  of  charming  pictures:  low, 
forested  mountains  marching  with  you  in  the  dis- 
tance; sleek  cattle  browzing  lazily  in  natural 
meadows  bespangled  with  wild  flowers;  cow-boys 
lounging  about  on  their  horses;  rude  pole-fences 
inclosing  wide  farms;  neat  log-houses,  each  with 
its  garden.  The  settlers  are  upstanding  and  vir- 
ile, on  the  whole  better-looking  than  you  will  see 
at  many  stations  in  our  Pacific  Northwest.  The 
wild-wood  is  unravaged;  the  streams  are  un- 
stained; the  meadows  are  nature's  own  herbar- 
ium. Everything  is  clean  and  fresh,  as  yet  unde- 
fined by  excess  of  human  beings. 

In  Khilok  Vale,  where  the  settlers  are  hewing 
their  way  into  primeval  forest,  the  occupation  of 
the  land  is  a  stage  further  advanced.  Felled  trees 
lie  at  the  borders  of  the  clearings,  and  the  crops 
grow  amid  charred  stumps.  Bees  hum  about  us 
at  the  water-tank  stops,  while  at  the  stations  bot- 
les  of  milk  and  kvass  and  baskets  of  eggs  are  to 
be  had  at  ridiculously  low  prices.    Nevertheless, 

133 


134  BUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

the  river-bottom  is  bright  with  the  intense  green 
of  wild  grass,  and  to  the  angler's  ear  the  clear, 
swift  brooks  whisper,  " Trout!" 

A  thousand  miles  west  you  are  in  Nebraska  in- 
stead of  Idaho,  the  same  level  country,  cotton- 
woods  along  the  water-courses,  groves  about  the 
scattered  farm-houses,  spacious  fields  of  oats  and 
wheat ;  but  the  absence  of  turnpikes,  wire  fences, 
swing-gates,  pumps,  wind-mills,  and  modern  agri- 
cultural implements  reveals  a  less  progressive 
spirit  than  has  wrought  on  the  Nebraska  prairie 
and  on  the  pampa  of  Argentina.  No  riding-plow, 
disk-harrow,  or  reaper  is  seen,  and  only  west  of 
Omsk  does  the*  first  mowing-machine  appear. 
Everywhere  one  sees  the  scythe  and  the  sickle. 

When  the  American  finds  himself  in  European 
Russia,  he  looks  out  upon  an  agriculture  totally 
unfamiliar  to  him.  The  fields  are  full  of  long, 
narrow  strips  like  the  rag-carpet  of  olden  time, 
in  which  this  inch  of  blue  represented  a  discarded 
shirt,  and  that  hand-breadth  of  gray  embodied 
an  old  army-blanket.  The  strips  run  from  two 
to  ten  yards  wide,  and  the  contrast  between  ad- 
jacent strips  indicates  that  they  have  been  tilled 
by  different  persons.  The  summer  fallow-fields 
are  likewise  in  ribbon-like  strips,  some  plowed  and 
others  stubble.  The  fence  dividing  the  fallow 
land,  which  is  pastured,  from  the  crops  is  in  sec- 
tions from  two  to  six  rods  long,  maintained  by  dif- 
ferent persons.  One  section  will  be  new,  the  next 
one  tumbling  down.  One  section  will  be  of  poles, 
while  the   one  beyond  will  be  of  rails.    There 


SOIL  HUNGER  135 

are  no  farm-houses  about  the  fields,  but  every 
few  miles  we  see  a  gray  huddle  of  huts,  and  from  it 
in  all  directions  wind  paths  to  the  cultivated  land. 

At  once  the  practiced  eye  is  struck  with  the 
folly  of  handling  land  in  such  narrow  strips. 
Each  has  to  be  plowed  by  itself,  which  means  that 
down  the  center  is  a  " headland"  about  sixteen 
inches  wide  which  is  not  turned  over  at  all.  Then 
between  the  strips  down  the  "dead  furrow"  is  a 
like  slice  which  the  plow  cannot  manage.  Thus 
every  season  from  five  to  twenty  per  cent,  of  the 
strip  lies  unbroken  and  yields  little  or  no  crop. 
Looking  over  a  field  of  wheat  sowed  in  strips,  one 
is  struck  by  the  unevenness  of  the  stand,  by  the 
ragged  rows  of  weeds  between  the  strips,  and  by 
the  number  of  neglected  plots  scattering  weed- 
seed  upon  the  neighboring  land.  One  misses  the 
solid  richness  of  the  wheat-field  that  has  been 
handled  as  a  unit. 

Strip  tillage  is  imposed  by  a  communal  sys- 
tem of  land-holding  which  died  out  in  western 
Europe  centuries  ago,  but,  owing  to  certain  his- 
torical causes,  still  dominates  Russian  agriculture 
and  governs  the  relation  to  the  soil  of  nearly  a 
hundred  million  rural  people.  To  get  the  system 
in  the  concrete  let  us  take  a  particular  village,  that 

of  K .    This  village  contains  150  "yards,"  or 

steadings,  and  has  two  thousand  inhabitants;  the 
owners  of  the  "yards"  constitute  an  obshchina, 
which  owns  thousands  of  acres  of  the  surrounding 
land.  The  meeting  of  the  members  of  the  obsh- 
china is  known  as  mir. 


136  KUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

The  communal  land  is  classified  as  "good"  and 
"poor,"  and  each  class  in  turn  is  divided  into 
three  nearly  equal  fields,  one  of  which  lies  fallow 
every  year,  while  the  other  two  are  bearing  crops. 
Every  member  of  the  association  has  a  strip  in 
each  of  these  fields,  six  in  all.  This,  however,  is 
about  the  simplest  apportionment  one  will  find. 
In  most  cases  distinction  is  made  between  bottom- 
land and  up-land,  between  sandy  soil  and  loam, 
between  level  and  rough,  and  even  between  the  far 
and  the  near  land.  In  order  to  give  every  member 
his  due  share  of  each  sort  of  soil,  it  is  necessary 
to  have  several  fields,  in  each  of  which  he  will  have 
his  portion.  Thus  it  comes  about  that  he  may 
have  his  fifteen  or  twenty  acres  snipped  into  thirty 
or  more  very  slender  strips. 

Since,  however,  one  outfit  of  strips  may  be  a 
little  more  desirable  than  another,  and  since 
equality  among  the  members  is  the  cardinal  prin- 
ciple of  the  obshchma,  it  is  customary  to  have 
every  year,  or  every  third  year,  a  re-allotment,  a 
fresh  deal  of  the  cards,  so  to  speak.  The  peasant 
therefore  has  no  personal  interest  in  manuring  his 
land,  subsoiling  it,  ridding  it  of  weeds,  laying  it 
down  in  clover,  or  sparing  it  lucrative,  but  ex- 
hausting, crops,  such  as  sunflower.  What  is  the 
use  of  building  up  the  soil,  when  the  next  holder 
will  get  most  of  the  benefit? 

In  K each  family  has  kept  the  same  number 

of  shares  that  came  to  it  at  emancipation,  when 
the  distribution  of  land  was  made  on  the  basis  of 
the  census  of  1858.    Despite  the  ownership  of  the 


SOIL  HUNGER  137 

land  being  vested  in  the  entire  community,  a  given 
family  has  continued  to  use  the  same  amount  of 
land,  although  the  strips  are  changed  from  time 
to  time.  This  system  of  unvarying  holdings  is 
followed,  however,  by  less  than  a  fifth  of  the 
109,000  communes  in  Russia. 

In  the  majority  of  the  communes  every  ten  or 
twelve  years  there  is  a  new  deal  in  land  all  around. 
Families  have  grown  unevenly,  while  some  are 
dying  out.  In  some  families  girls  predominate, 
in  others  boys.  Hence  the  principle  of  equality 
in  the  use  of  communal  land  calls  for  a  reshuffling 
of  the  holdings.  The  land  poor,  i.  e.,  those  whose 
families  have  outgrown  their  holdings,  try  to  keep 
the  issue  alive,  and,  having  tradition  and  numbers 
on  their  side,  they  usually  have  their  way.  A  new 
division  is  made,  and  the  number  of  shares  in  the 
hands  of  one  family  is  brought  into  correspon- 
dence with  its  number  of  male  workers. 

Just  such  an  upheaval  our  village  of  K ex- 
perienced shortly  before  my  visit.  As  the  land 
had  not  been  redistributed  since  emancipation 
fifty-four  years  ago,  each  householder's  share  had 
descended  to  one  of  his  sons,  while  the  rest  worked 
as  day-laborers  on  the  neighboring  estate  of  Count 

S or  sought  a  living  in  the  city.    Inspired  by 

the  new  democratic  self-assertiveness  sweeping 
through  the  Russian  masses,  these  landless  ones 
had  forced  their  way  into  the  mir  and  obtained 
a  redistribution  of  its  acreage  into  a  much  larger 
number  of  parcels.  Even  after  taking  in  soil 
which  hitherto  had  been  scorned,  there  were  not 


138  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

more  than  sixteen  acres  apiece,  which  means  that 
the  peasant  will  have  to  supplement  his  scanty  pro- 
duce by  working  for  wages. 

Eural  Eussia,  therefore,  presents  a  totally  dif- 
ferent aspect  from  rural  America.  Instead  of 
house,  red  barn,  windmill,  and  grove  on  every 
farm,  the  tilled  fields  stretch  away  for  miles  to 
some  village  where  lives  nobody  but  farmers.  The 
village  is  not  a  petty  affair  of  a  few  score  of 
families,  as  is  the  typical  rural  hamlet  of  France 
or  Germany.  The  number  of  inhabitants  runs  into 
the  thousands,  and  one  hears  of  villages  of  twelve 
or  even  fifteen  thousand  souls.  Such  a  population 
requires  a  lot  of  land,  and  even  if  the  land  were 
in  a  compact  block,  with  the  village  in  the  center, 
there  would  be  a  dismal  loss  of  time  between  the 
homes  and  the  remote  fields.  But  in  general  the 
land  does  not  lie  so  conveniently.  It  may  straggle 
along  a  valley,  or  be  broken  into  separate  parcels 
by  a  river,  a  great  estate,  or  a  stretch  of  waste. 
The  village  may  lie  at  one  end  or  one  corner  of 
the  obshchina  land,  instead  of  at  the  center. 
Hence  one  hears  of  fields  lying  twelve,  fifteen,  or 
even  twenty  miles  from  those  who  are  to  cultivate 
them.  When  he  goes  to  till  his  strips  in  these 
distant  fields,  the  peasant  takes  provisions,  and 
camps  under  his  wagon  till  the  job  is  done.  It  is 
needless  to  remark  that  in  such  circumstances  the 
remote  parts  of  the  obshchina' s  land  will  be  poorly 
looked  after,  if,  indeed,  they  are  not  altogether 
abandoned  to  weeds. 

On  the  princely  domain  of  Count  S ,  which 


SOIL  HUNGER  139 

stretches  away  over  hill  and  valley  until  it  encom- 
passes a  hundred  thousand  acres,  we  find  an  ut- 
terly different  type  of  agriculture.  The  estate  has 
been  surveyed  and  marked  in  ten-acre  squares, 
which  are  numbered.  Every  year  there  is  hung 
up  in  the  office  of  every  foreman  a  map  of  the  es- 
tate, on  which  every  square  has  a  tint  indicating 
the  kind  of  crop  it  is  to  bear  the  coming  season. 
A  scientific  rotation  of  crops  does  away  with  the 
necessity  of  summer  fallowing.  All  the  manure 
is  restored  to  the  soil,  whereas  the  peasant  has 
to  use  his  manure  for  household  fuel.  About 
headquarters  one  sees  parked  hundreds  of  wagons, 
plows,  harrows,  seeders,  mowers,  reapers,  and 
self-binders,  all  of  the  best  type.  The  main  stable 
shelters  one  hundred  and  twenty  horses.  The 
count's  swine  run  a  great  deal  to  leg  and  snout, 
but  his  sheep  are  high  bred.  The  place  blushes 
for  a  vodka  distillery,  which,  fortunately,  has  been 
quiescent  for  three  years.  It  boasts,  however,  its 
kennel  of  splendid  Russian  wolf-hounds,  which 
provide  sport  for  the  count  on  the  rare  occasions 
when  he  deigns  to  pass  a  few  days  on  his  estate. 

All  parts  of  this  principality  of  one  hundred 
and  fifty  square  miles  are  knit  by  telephone-wire, 
and  headquarters  is  constantly  in  touch  with  the 
minor  centers  from  which  the  operations  of  six- 
teen hundred  laborers  are  directed.  In  the  morn- 
ing the  manager  can  tell  you  the  number  of  bushels 
cleaned  up  yesterday  by  each  steam-thresher  on 
the  place,  the  amount  of  coal  used,  the  number  of 
hours  of  labor  expended,  the  bushel  cost  of  thresh- 


140  KUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

ing  each  kind  of  grain,  the  quantity  of  feed  con- 
sumed by  the  draft-animals,  and  the  comparative 
performance  of  the  different  types  of  each  kind 
of  implement.  What  with  rain-gage,  dynamo- 
meter, and  plotted  graph,  farming  goes  forward 
on  a  tolerably  exact  basis.  One  hears  in  Russia 
not  only  of  estates  so  big  that  a  single  estate  re- 
quires one  hundred  and  forty  steam-threshers  to 
clean  up  its  grain,  but  also  of  estates  in  charge  of 
a  corps  of  agrondms,  which,  besides  having  their 
own  foundry  and  repair-shop,  maintain  an  experi- 
ment station  equal  to  those  provided  by  the  United 
States  Department  of  Agriculture.  Indeed,  no- 
where in  America  is  large-scale  farming  carried 
on  so  scientifically  as  on  certain  Russian  estates. 
The  count's  farm  is  by  no  means  a  model  in  this 
respect,  but  even  he  gets  twice  as  much  yield  per 
acre  as  do  his  peasants  from  the  niggardly  6500 
acres  he  put  them  off  with  at  the  time  of  their 
emancipation  from  serfdom. 

It  would  be  a  mistake,  however,  to  assume  that 
the  estates  are  generally  run  on  this  plan.  Most 
Russian  noblemen  prefer  to  let  their  land  to  the 
peasants,  rather  than  to  go  to  the  bother  and  ex- 
pense of  bringing  it  under  a  scientific  regime. 
This  is  why,  on  the  average,  their  acre  yield  is 
only  a  fourth  more  than  that  of  the  neighboring 
ooshchina  land.  Of  the  140,000,000  arable  acres 
in  the  hands  of  gentlemen  landowners,  from  a  third 
to  a  half  is  rented  for  cash.  Of  the  rest,  the  larger 
part  is  tilled  under  some  form  of  share-tenancy, 
owner  and  tenant  being  partners  in  a  measure. 


a 


u 


SOIL  HUNGER  143 

Not  more  than  ten  or  fifteen  million  acres  are  cul- 
tivated by  hired  laborers,  aided  by  modern  ma- 
chinery and  directed  by  managers  and  foremen 
advised  by  agricultural  experts. 

Since  emancipation  there  has  been  a  consider- 
able movement  of  land  into  peasant  hands  by  pur- 
chase. From  313,000,000  acres  in  1861,  the  peas- 
ants increased  their  holdings  to  378,000,000  acres 
in  1905,  and  to  about  405,000,000  acres  in  1914.' 
This  increase  has  been  at  the  expense  of  the  hold- 
ings of  the  nobles,  many  of  whom  drank  up, 
dressed  up,  or  gambled  up  their  hereditary  estates. 
Even  without  the  revolution,  the  finish  of  the  land- 
owner class  was  near.  Bit  by  bit  their  land  has 
come  into  calloused  hands,  and  a  new  class  of 
landholders  has  appeared,  certain  thrifty  and 
shrewd  peasants  who  have  made  one  hand  wash 
the  other,  one  field  buy  the  next,  until  they  have 
more  than  they  can  till,  and  let  their  land  like 
a  lord.  At  present  it  is  doubtful  if  the  nobles  re- 
tain more  than  a  third  of  the  farm-land  of  Eu- 
ropean Russia. 

In  the  meantime  the  peasants  have  developed 
a  fierce  hunger  for  land.  Even  at  the  outset  of 
their  life  as  freemen,  they  felt  they  were  put  off 
with  too  little,  and  the  legend  spread  among  them 
that  the  good  tsar  had  decreed  they  should  have 
the  acres  they  had  watered  with  their  sweat  and 
that  their  masters  were  holding  back  the  best  part 
of  his  ukase.  In  some  districts  it  took  a  fusillade 
to  correct  their  minds  on  this  point.  Then  they 
have  multiplied  at  a  great  rate,  for  the  communal 


144  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

system  encourages  recklessness  in  the  matter  of 
family.  Since  the  more  sons  there  are,  the  more 
shares  in  the  village  land,  intemperate  fecundity 
incurs  no  punishment.  Said  to  me  the  author  of 
the  land  law  of  1910 :  "I  have  known  a  family  to 
speculate  anxiously  whether  the  expected  baby  will 
be  a  boy  and  arrive  in  time,  and  to  jubilate  when 
a  male  infant  was  born  the  day  before  the  redis- 
tribution of  the  obshchlna  land.  It  meant  one 
more  share  to  that  family. "  This  may  throw  light 
on  why  Courland,  on  the  Baltic,  which  knows  not 
the  obshchlna,  has  the  same  birthrate  as  the 
United  States,  while  in  the  communal  parts  of 
Russia  the  births  are  from  two  to  two  and  one  half 
times  as  frequent  as  with  us.  No  wonder  the 
average  holding  per  family,  which  was  13  acres 
in  1860,  fell  to  9y2  acres  by  1880  and  to  but  7  acres 
by  1900! 

Not  only  do  the  shares  shrink  as  the  land  is 
divided  among  more  claimants,  but  the  crude  soil- 
robbing  tillage  results  in  a  declining  yield  per 
acre.  Like  the  penumbra  of  an  eclipse,  the 
shadow  of  soil  exhaustion  is  sweeping  across  Rus- 
sia from  west  to  east.  The  peasant's  land  is  very 
badly  farmed,  yet  the  poor  fellow  cannot  imagine 
how  to  extract  more  from  his  fields.  Of  the 
methods  of  intensive  cultivation  he  has  not  the 
faintest  inkling.  Thanks  to  the  policy  of  cher- 
ishing darkness  as  the  guardian  angel  of  the  Ro- 
manof  dynasty,  peasant  farming  is  stubbornly  tra- 
ditional, and  there  is  no  way  whereby  essential 
knowledge  as  to  soil  conservation,  deep  tillage, 


SOIL  HUNGER  145 

rotation  of  corps,  and  stock  raising  can  quickly 
penetrate  to  the  rural  population. 

As  the  mass  of  the  peasants  find  it  harder  to 
squeeze  a  living  out  of  their  petty  strips,  what  is 
more  natural  than  that  they  should  dream  always 
of  more  land  I  They  can,  indeed ,  imagine  no 
other  remedy  for  their  distress;  so  among  them 
spreads  the  religious  doctrine — which  never 
strikes  root  where  there  is  a  sound  land  policy — 
that  God's  earth  is  for  all  His  children,  and  that 
not  man,  but  God,  is  the  rightful  owner  of  the 
land. 

All  political  parties  agree  that  the  class  of  gen- 
tlemen landowners  must  go.  Most  of  them  do 
nothing  for  Russian  agriculture,  and  in  their  pres- 
ent temper  the  people  will  not  tolerate  hereditary 
parasites.  But  it  is  not  clear  how  the  dividing 
of  their  estates  among  the  nearest  obshchinas  is 
to  quiet  the  clamorous  land  hunger  of  the  moujiks. 
The  total  area  thus  to  be  made  available  is  much 
less  than  they  imagine,  and,  besides,  the  estates 
are  by  no  means  evenly  distributed  among  prov- 
inces and  districts.  In  many  parts  of  Russia 
the  peasants  will  get  no  land,  because  there  are 
no  estates  in  their  neighborhood.  It  will  hardly 
comfort  them  to  know  that  in  the  next  county  the 
peasants  are  enjoying  fine  slices  from  the  carving 
of  some  big  domain.  When  they  awake  to  the 
truth,  will  not  the  disappointed  raise  the  cry 
that  all  the  land  must  be  pooled  and  redistributed? 

Then  what  of  the  estates,  amounting  altogether, 
perhaps,  to  ten  or  fifteen  million  acres,  which  are 


146  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

now  exploited  in  a  systematic  capitalistic  fashion? 
Their  tillage  is  vastly  superior  to  that  of  com- 
mon moujik  land,  so  that  they  yield  twice  or  thrice 
as  much  per  acre.  Perhaps  these  scientifically 
managed  estates  point  the  way  to  the  socialized 
agriculture  of  the  future.  To  break  up  these  or- 
ganizations in  order  to  parcel  out  the  land  among 
the  peasants  would  be  an  economic  disaster  to 
Russia.  Some  propose  that  the  Government  take 
them  over  and  run  them  as  public  utilities,  but 
thoughtful  men  realize  that  the  Government  is  not 
yet  equal  to  such  a  task.  Others  imagine  that  the 
peasants  Will  keep  the  machinery,  retain  the  salar- 
ied manager  and  experts,  work  the  estate  as  before 
for  wages,  and  at  the  close  of  the  season  divide 
the  profits  which  now  go  to  the  enterprising  land- 
owner. Such  a  solution  hardly  squares  with  what 
we  know  of  the  peasants.  A  third  alternative  is 
to  leave  such  estates  undisturbed,  on  the  ground 
that  these  intelligent  proprietors  are  rendering 
a  service  to  society.  True,  but  there  is  little  pros- 
pect that  the  people  can  be  brought  to  look  upon 
them  in  this  light.  What  seems  likely  to  happen 
is  that  these  estates  will  go  into  the  melting-pot 
along  with  the  rest. 

Now  as  to  the  terms  on  which  the  lands  of  the 
nobles  are  to  be  taken  over.  With  much  force  the 
socialists  urge: 

"The  pomieshchiks,  or  gentlemen  landowners, 
never  invested  good  money  in  these  lands.  They 
were  presented  by  the  crown  as  an  endowment  for 
military  services  which  are  now  provided  on  a 


SOIL  HUNGER  149 

totally  different  basis.  Not  for  generations  have 
the  noble  landowners  been  called  on  to  render 
special  services  to  the  state.  Have  they  not  been 
parasites  long  enough?  Is  it  not  high  time  for 
these  loafers  to  go  to  work  and  earn  their  living 
like  the  rest  of  us  ?  Why  should  we  hand  them  a 
sheaf  of  government  bonds  for  yielding  up  rentals 
to  which  they  have  long  had  no  moral  title  1 '  ' 

Very  good,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  many  of  these 
gentry  have  only  an  equity  in  their  estates.  For 
reasons  good  and  bad — to  raise  capital  for  the 
more  efficient  exploitation  of  their  land  or  to  get 
money  for  their  extravagances — they  have  bor- 
rowed on  the  security  of  their  estates  until  the 
mortgages  piled  on  this  land  amount  to  forty  per 
cent,  of  its  value.  Such  securities  enter  into  the 
foundations  of  all  important  Russian  credit  in- 
stitutions, and  these  would  be  shaken  or  shattered 
if  the  private  estates  were  taken  over  without 
compensation. 

Meanwhile  the  peasants  have  been  taking  things 
into  their  own  hands.  In  many  cases  the  obsh- 
cluna  has  anticipated  the  division  of  the  noble- 
man's estate  by  seizing  and  tilling  his  fields  on 
its  own  account.  The  peasants  refuse  to  work 
his  fields  for  wages.  Then  perhaps  the  land  com- 
mittee says  to  him:  "You  can't  hire  anybody  to 
till  your  land.  Well,  rather  than  let  it  grow  weeds 
when  Russia  needs  food,  let  the  obshchlna  culti- 
vate it  this  year,  and  the  terms  can  be  adjusted 
afterward."  Of  course, -once  the  peasants  get 
their  plows  into  it,  they  will  regard  the  land  as 


150  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

their  own,  and  will  never  give  it  up  without  a 
struggle.  On  the  estate  of  Count  S the  revo- 
lution was  followed  by  a  drastic  downward  revision 
of  the  rentals  to  about  one  third.  There  was  no 
depredations  on  his  property,  save  that  in  one  vil- 
lage some  newcomers  helped  themselves  to  the 
Count's  grass  and  pastured  their  animals  on  his 
meadows.  Perhaps  he  got  off  so  well  because  last 
spring  he  let  the  peasants  have  free  27,000  acres 
for  grazing  and  33,000  acres  for  plow-land.  Even 
then  they  raised  too  little  for  their  needs,  the  1917 
harvest  being  bad ;  so  he  let  them  have  eight  hun- 
dred tons  of  grain.  After  doing  so  much  to  keep 
his  peasants  sweet-tempered,  the  Count,  no  doubt, 
raised  his  clenched  hands  to  Heaven  and  cursed 
the  revolution  that  has  destroyed  all  authority  and 
obliged  the  noble  landholder  to  dance  to  the  peas- 
ant's piping. 

Things  go  not  so  badly,  however,  for  there  have 
long  been  land  committees  looking  after  the  rela- 
tions among  the  people  about  the  land.  These 
have  gone  into  disputed  matters  and  rendered  de- 
cisions in  line  with  the  new  sense  of  social  justice. 
They  have  no  power  to  coerce,  but  usually  the 
peasants  accept  their  rulings  without  a  murmur. 
For  example,  the  land  committee  for  Samara 
province  found  that  needy  peasants,  leasing  small 
parcels  from  year  to  year,  had  to  pay  three  times 
as  high  a  rent  as  those  who  took  land  on  long 
leases.  The  former  were  being  "rack-rented," 
like  the  Irish  tenants  of  the  last  century.  On  an 
appeal  from  the  Samara  Congress  of  Peasants, 


SOIL  HUNGER  151 

the  committee  looked  into  the  matter  and  reduced 
their  rents  one  third.  When  the  peasants  help 
themselves  to  the  untilled  parts  of  an  estate  the 
committee  fixes  a  fair  rental,  and  the  peasants 
pay  these  sums  into  the  state  bank,  to  be  disposed 
of  according  to  the  terms  of  the  ultimate  land 
settlement.  If,  however,  a  peasant  will  not  pay, 
nothing  can  be  done.  Authority  with  teeth  in  it 
does  not  exist  in  Russia  in  this  year  of  revolu- 
tion. 

The  revolution  seems  likely  to  fasten  the  com- 
munal system  more  firmly  than  ever  upon  the  peo- 
ple. Yet  the  Russian  peasant  will  never  be  an 
aspiring,  adaptive,  self-reliant  member  of  society 
until  he  somehow  acquires  the  valuable  economic 
traits  developed  under  the  private  ownership  of 
land.  Said  an  American  agent  for  farm  machin- 
ery, who  has  spent  thirteen  years  in  Russia: 

"The  peasant  is  a  hard  worker  in  the  rush  sea- 
son, but  not  thrifty.  He  does  not  save  chores  for 
a  rainy  day  or  a  dull  season  in  farming.  Between 
whiles  he  is  absolutely  idle." 

Here,  perhaps,  is  why  the  peasants  do  nothing 
to  make  their  homes  attractive.  In  the  rural  vil- 
lage you  find  no  trim  streets,  front  yards,  grass- 
plots,  shade-trees,  flower-beds,  or  ornamental 
shrubbery.  They  have  time  to  provide  these,  but 
not  the  impulse;  they  lack  the  idea  of  ceaseless 
improvement. 

Another  side-light  comes  from  a  Lutheran 
pastor,  bred  in  Courland: 

4 '  The  peasant  is  land  hungry  because  he  has  no 


152  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

notion  that  he  can  increase  his  produce  by  more 
intensive  cultivation.  Unless  he  goes  over  to  in- 
dividual ownership  and  intensive  farming,  the  es- 
tates of  the  pomieshchiks  will  last  him  but  a  little 
while,  and  then  he  will  be  as  badly  off  as  ever.', 

The  economists,  sociologists,  and  statesmen  of 
Russia  seem  agreed  that  communal  land-holding 
is  an  outgrown  system.  They  want  the  moujihs 
to  be  acted  upon  by  the  same  individualizing  and 
stimulating  forces  which  have  put  the  French 
farmer  and  the  American  farmer  so  far  ahead  of 
him.  Stolypin  had  been  so  impressed  by  the  mob 
psychology  of  the  community  peasant  that  he  put 
through  a  law  requiring  the  obshchina,  on  the  de- 
mand of  any  member,  to  give  him  his  share  of 
the  land  in  a  single  plot,  which  then  became 
his  individual  property.  Within  ten  years  great 
numbers  of  such  associations  were  dissolved,  and 
114  million — about  8.2  per  cent,  of  those  under  the 
communal  system — had  their  land  ''divided  out" 
and  went  to  live  on  it  like  an  American  farmer. 

All  over  the  world  students  of  land  problems 
hailed  this  movement  as  promising  a  better  agri- 
culture and  a  higher  rural  civilization  in  Eussia. 
But  Professor  Miliukof  pointed  out  to  me  that 
in  many  cases  only  by  violent  and  artificial 
methods  were  the  peasants  induced  to  break  up 
their  association.  Individual  persons  were  urged 
to  demand  a  division,  and  then  given  choice  land 
by  the  government  commission,  so  as  to  encourage 
others  to  follow  their  example  and  to  warn  the 
obshchina  that  it  would  be  left  with  poor  land  if 


SOIL  HUNGER  153 

it  delayed  dissolution.  In  the  early  years  of  the 
reform  there  was  much  activity  owing  to  the  ac- 
cumulation of  unsatisfied  desires  for  a  division, 
but  even  before  the  war  the  dividing-out  process 
had  slackened.  Since  the  revolution  the  feeling 
of  the  peasants  for  the  communal  system  has  come 
to  the  surface.  Evidently  they  regarded  those 
who  left  the  community  to  live  on  farms  of  their 
own  as  renegades,  for  of  late  they  have  been  forc- 
ing these  homesteaders  to  give  back  their  land  to 
the  obshchma  and  live  again  in  the  villages.  It 
appears  that  the  battle  between  the  champions  of 
private  property  in  land  and  the  friends  of  com- 
munal property  in  land  will  have  to  be  ref  ought  on 
a  greater  scale  than  ever. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  ROOTS  OF  THE  REVOLUTION 

OVER  the  spot  on  the  quay  of  a  canal  in 
Petrograd  where  Alexander  II  met  his 
death  from  a  terrorist 's  bomb  on  the  first  day  of 
March,  1881,  rises  the  wonderful  Church  of  the 
Resurrection,  built  from  public  gifts  as  a  mark 
of  grief  and  loyalty.  It  is  like  a  cut  gem.  The 
walls,  vaulted  ceilings,  and  domes  are  lined  with 
religious  mosaics.  St.  Mark's  in  Venice  has  long 
held  the  palm  for  color  pictures  in  stone,  but  this 
church  glories  in  four  times  as  much  mosaic  as 
St.  Mark's.  Some  of  the  pure-silver  candelabra 
used  in  the  services  weigh  more  than  a  heavy  man. 
Each  of  the  doors  to  the  altar  contains  about  half 
a  ton  of  silver.  The  holy  pictures  are  set  in  gold, 
studded  with  gems.  In  one  the  raiment  of  the 
Virgin  is  a  fabric  of  pearls.  The  ikons  are  flanked 
by  panels  of  chalcedony  and  other  precious  stones 
from  the  Urals,  carved  with  vast  labor  into  elab- 
orate flower  patterns.  One  piece  about  as  large 
as  an  open  book  occupied  ten  years  of  the  artist's 
life ;  another  took  twelve  years,  the  chisel  working 
always  under  oil.  For  one  of  these  an  offer  of 
seventy  thousand  dollars  was  refused. 

The  place  where  the  tsar  fell,  with  the  original 
cobblestones,  flagstones,  and  iron  railing,  is  shown 

154 


THE  ROOTS  OF  THE  REVOLUTION     155 

inclosed  in  a  beautiful  balustrade  of  red  malachite 
and  covered  with  a  canopy  upborne  on  columns  of 
polished  jasper,  the  lighted  interior  of  which 
flashes  with  jewels.  Marking  the  reverent  de- 
meanor of  those  who  continually  come  to  gaze, 
cross  themselves,  and  kneel  at  this  national  shrine, 
one  would  take  it  for  nothing  less  than  the  spot  of 
the  Crucifixion.  Yet  in  the  American  Church  in 
Petrograd,  at  the  1917  Easter  service,  an  old  Rus- 
sian peasant  uttered  with  deep  emotion  the  prayer, 
"0  Lord,  we  thank  Thee  from  the  depths  of  our 
souls  that  after  three  hundred  and  four  years  of 
slavery  Thou  hast  set  the  Russian  people  free." 

The  year  before  the  war  their  ruling  family 
celebrated  with  characteristic  pomp  the  tercente- 
nary of  the  national  rising,  headed  by  a  simple 
butcher  of  Nijni-Novgorod,  which  swept  the  Polish 
conquerors  out  of  Muscovy  and  made  a  tsar  of 
Michael  Feodorovitch,  son  of  the  Boyar  Romanof. 
On  the  whole,  this  dynasty  has  not  a  bad  record 
for  ability.  Besides  Peter  the  Great  and  Cath- 
erine II,  who  stand  with  the  foremost  monarchs 
of  all  time,  the  tsars  of  the  last  century,  Nicholas 
I  and  the  three  Alexanders,  possessed  undoubted 
force  and  capacity.  It  is  certain  that  the  Russian 
people  have  not  been  held  in  a  loathed  bondage  for 
three  hundred  years  by  the  Romanofs. 

The  tragedy  is  that  when  the  people  were  fit  to 
have  a  share  in  government  the  tsars  clung  stub- 
bornly to  absolute  power.  The  leading  students 
of  Russian  history  differ  as  to  when  the  autocracy 
became  a  drag  upon  progress.    Some  find  the 


156  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

turning-point  in  1866,  when,  after  an  attempt  upon 
his'life,  Alexander  II  abruptly  dropped  his  pro- 
gram of  reforms  and  gave  himself  up  to  a  reaction 
which  ten  years  later  called  into  existence  the 
terrorist  movement.  The  weight  of  opinion,  how- 
ever, is  that  Russia  would  have  got  on  well  .with 
representative  institutions  a  hundred  years  ago. 
If  at  the  close  of  the  Napoleonic  struggle  the  na- 
tion had  received  a  constitution  and  a  parliament, 
how  different  would  be  its  place  to-day  in  the  pro- 
cession of  the  peoples!  But  after  Waterloo  and 
the  Congress  of  Vienna,  the  tsar  Alexander  I, 
taking  himself  to  be  the  God-appointed  champion 
of  divine  right  and  legitimacy  throughout  the 
world,  repressed  liberal  aspirations  among  his 
subjects  with  a  harshness  that  brought  on  the  ris- 
ing of  December,  1825.  East  of  Lake  Baikal,  in 
Chita,  a  town  the  size  of  Peoria,  the  principal  thor- 
oughfare is  "The  Street  of  the  Ladies."  The 
name  keeps  alive  the  fact  that  ninety-two  years 
ago  the  Decembrists  were  banished  to  this  point, 
almost  at  the  borders  of  Manchuria,  and  while  the 
men  were  made  to  build  their  prison,  their  del- 
icately nurtured  wives  reared  as  best  they  could 
the  row  of  huts  that  should  shelter  them  from  a 
Siberian  winter.  This  was  the  beginning  of  the 
"Street  of  the  Ladies."  Since  that  time,  no 
doubt,  the  Romanof  s  have  been  a  milestone  about 
the  neck  of  the  Russian  people. 

Shortly  after  the  centennial  of  American  free- 
dom, Rnssian  liberals  began  to  strike  back  at  a 
government  that  had  nothing  but  fortress  dun- 


THE  EOOTS  OF  THE  REVOLUTION     159 

geons  and  Siberia  for  those  guilty  of  loving  the 
people  well  enough  to  live  among  them,  nurse 
them,  teach  them,  and  try  to  lift  them  out  of  their 
darkness  and  misery.  Generals  and  governors 
of  extraordinary  cruelty  were  picked  off  by  bullet 
or  bomb.  Early  in  1880  the  dining-room  of  the 
Winter  Palace  was  blown  up  just  when  the  entire 
imperial  family  was  to  be  at  dinner  with  the  Prince 
of  Bulgaria.  Nothing  but  the  lateness  of  the 
prince's  train  prevented  the  sudden  extermina- 
tion of  the  Romanofs.  At  the  beginning  of  1881 
word  was  got  to  the  tsar  that  he  must  cease  his 
oppressions  or  die.  He  was  shaken,  and  when, 
two  months  later,  a  bomb  exploded  at  his  feet  he 
had  just  approved  a  scheme  which  contemplated 
bringing  representative  citizens  into  cooperation 
with  the  officials  on  commissions  charged  with 
overhauling  and  reforming  the  Government.  If 
the  tsar  had  been  a  little  more  prompt,  or  if  his 
son  and  successor  had  not  been  persuaded  by  the 
sinister  Pobiedonostzef  to  ditch  the  whole  thing, 
the  course  of  Russian  history  since  might  have  run 
in  the  sunlight. 

Not  since  the  French  Revolution  has  the  world 
beheld  a  more  thrilling  spectacle  than  the  long 
duel  waged  between  a  few  hundred  terrorists  and 
a  government  with  unlimited  resources  in  rubles, 
bayonets,  and  police.  By  the  close  of  the  reaction- 
ary reign  of  Alexander  III  it  had  become  apparent 
that  the  terrorists  had  failed.  They  had  not 
wrested  the  people's  freedom  from  the  tsar,  nor 
was  there  lack  of  officials  to  do  any  butcher  work 


160  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

that  the  autocrat  might  need  to  have  done.  By  its 
system  of  spies  and  agents  provocateurs,  worm- 
ing themselves  into  the  innermost  revolutionary 
circles,  the  secret  police  had  found  the  means  of 
bringing  to  naught  nearly  all  anti-Government 
plots.  At  rare  intervals  the  plotters  scored,  but 
meanwhile  great  numbers  of.  gallant  men  and 
women  had  been  hanged,  had  committed  suicide, 
gone  mad  in  solitary  cells,  or  had  been  buried  alive 
in  the  mines  of  the  Lena. 

It  would  be  intolerable,  however,  if  so  much 
heroic  self-devotion  had  gone  for  naught.  The 
leaders  of  the  March  revolution  insist  that,  con- 
trary to  the  general  impression,  the  terrorist  in  a 
way  succeeded.  Without  their  sacrifices,  the  tsar 
would  still  be  in  the  Winter  Palace.  In  a  time 
when  speech  was  gagged  and  the  press  throttled 
they  maintained  a  ' '  propaganda  by  deed. ' '  Word 
of  their  astounding  exploits  penetrated  to  the  most 
benighted  layers  of  the  people.  The  simple- 
minded  peasant,  even  when  drugged  by  a  state- 
controlled  church,  could  not  but  wonder  why  a 
student  should  deliberately  blow  himself  up,  or 
a  refined  girl  risk  being  outraged  by  a  gang  of 
police  or  having  them  extinguish  their  cigarettes 
against  her  naked  body,  in  order  to  do  away  with 
some  ferocious  official.  In  the  mind  of  millions 
germinated  for  the  first  time  a  doubt  as  to  the 
divine  character  of  the  "Little  Father's"  system. 

The  late  reign  filled  the  cup  to  the  brim.  There 
is  a  general  impression,  created  by  the  sycophan- 
tic foreign  press,  subsidized  by  the  old  regime  for 


THE  ROOTS  OF  THE  REVOLUTION     161 

its  purposes,  that  Nicholas  is  a  humane  and  high- 
minded  man  who  has  been  put  in  a  false  light  by 
the  ill-curbed  zeal  of  his  servants.  That  he  is 
affable  in  manner  is  beyond  question.  He  had  his 
own  way  of  getting  rid  of  a  minister  he  no  longer 
wanted.  Instead  of  telling  the  man  to  his  face, 
he  wrote  him  a  letter  or  allowed  him  to  learn  of 
his  dismissal  from  the  official  gazette.  But  this 
gracious  manner  in  no  wise  softened  the  treatment 
of  those  who  remonstrated  against  the  tyranny 
and  misrule  of  his  reign.  On  one  occasion  some 
politicals,  condemned  to  death  by  a  military  court, 
petitioned  the  tsar  for  clemency.  The  minister  of 
war  brought  the  petitions  himself,  with  the  recom- 
mendation that  they  be  granted.  Nicholas  said 
nothing,  but  turned  away,  and  drummed  absently 
with  his  fingers  on  the  window-pane.  The  minis- 
ter saw  the  point,  and  the  men  were  executed. 
Insiders  insist  that  he  is  really  crafty  and  false, 
of  the  type  of  certain  honeyed,  pious,  treacherous, 
and  relentless  emperors  of  Byzantium.    ) 

AsVthe  intelligentsia  came  to  be  arrayed  almost 
unanimously  against  an  irresponsible  and  violent 
Government,  as  the  persecution  necessary  to  sup- 
press the  critics  of  the  existing  order  became  more 
wholesale,  summary,  and  cruel,  a  strange  situation 
arose,  without  a  parallel  in  modern  history  since 
King  Bomba  of  Naples  was  overthrown  by  Gari- 
baldi and  his  Thousand.  The  Government  and  its 
enemies  came  to  represent  opposite  moral  poles. 
On  the  one  hand,  nearly  all  who  were  by  nature 
the  nobler,  more  unselfish  and  fearless,  sooner  or 


162  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

later  engaged  in  some  forbidden  activity  and 
ended  in  prison  or  in  Siberia,  if  they  did  not 
escape  to  a  foreign  country.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  Government  came  to  be,  in  the  main,  an  or- 
ganization of  "dark"  people.  Those  rougher, 
more  selfish  or  time-serving  than  their  fellows 
took  service  with  this  organization,  which  always 
had  money  and  knew  how  to  protect  and  reward 
its  own. 

v./ 

.  One  must  not  overlook,  however,  that  although 
the  moral  quality  of  the  ordinary  government 
servants  declined  to  an  incredibly  low  level,  the 
higher  officials  were  drawn  from  families  the  chil- 
dren of  which  were  educated  in  private  schools, 
and  bred  to  regard  autocracy  as  the  only  possible 
regime  for  Russia.  In  such  cases  caste  training 
sufficed  to  produce  the  moral  bluntness  needed  in 
government  work;  so  that  the  captains  of  the 
forces  of  repression  were  not  necessarily  harsher 
or  more  selfish  in  nature  than  the  average. 

Although  the  masters  of  Russia  were  national 
and  not  foreign  in  origin,  as  they  grew  callous  to 
the  opposition  and  hatred  their  tyranny  excited, 
their  behavior  came  to  resemble  that  of  conquerors 
in  the  midst  of  a  subjugated  population.  The 
loosing  of  Cossacks  armed  with  whips  upon  inof- 
fensive university  students,  the  habitual  display 
of  overwhelming  military  force,  the  mowing  down 
with  machine-guns  of  unarmed,  petitioning  work- 
ing-men, the  bombardment  of  houses  and  factories, 
the  fusillading  without  trial  of  batches  of  pris- 
oners, show  that  the  Government  regarded  the 


THE  BOOTS  OF  THE  REVOLUTION     163 

people  as  its  enemy.  Its  dealings  with  them  re- 
call the  treatment  of  the  natives  of  Peru  by  the 
Spanish  Conquistadores  or  of  the  Christian  peo- 
ples of  the  Balkan  Peninsula  by  the  Turks.  In 
fact,  it  is  hard  to  find  an  instance  in  history  when  a 
people  not  under  a  foreign  yoke  have  been  so 
abused  and  oppressed  as  the  Russians  under  his 
Gracious  Majesty  Nicholas  II. 

Twelve  years  ago,  after  the  needless  and  in- 
glorious war  of  Russia  with  Japan,  the  tormented 
Russian  people  gave  the  autocracy  a  bad  year. 
On  January  9,  1905,  thirty  thousand  Petrograd 
working-men,  led  by  the  priest  Gapon,  carrying 
ikons  and  singing  religious  songs,  had  the  naivete 
to  march  to  the  Winter  Palace  with  a  petition  to 
the  tsar.  Nicholas  took  refuge  at  Tsarskoe  Selo, 
and  left  his  uncle,  the  Grand  Duke  Vladimir,  to 
deal  with  the  situation.  Fifteen  hundred  were 
shot  down  in  Palace  Square,  and  since  that  "Red 
Sunday"  the  "Little  Father"  myth  has  found 
scant  credence  among  the  workers  of  Russia. 

General  strike  succeeded  general  strike,  the 
country  was  in  an  uproar,  organization  spread  in 
every  direction,  and  finally  in  October,  Nicholas 
dismissed  Pobiedonostzef  and  announced  it  as 

Our  inflexible  will 

1.  To  grant  the  people  the  immutable  foundations  of 
civil  liberty,  based  on  real  inviolability  of  person,  free- 
dom of  conscience,  speech,  meeting,  and  associations; 

2.  ...  To  call  to  participation  in  the  state  Duma 
.  .  .  those  classes  of  the  population  now  completely  de- 
prived of  electoral  rights,  leaving  the  ultimate  develop- 


(V 


.uK 


164  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

merit  of  the  principle  of  electoral  right  in  general  to  the 
newly  established  order. 

3.  To  establish  as  an  inviolable  rule  that  no  law  can 
ever  come  into  force  without  the  approval  of  the  state 
Duma,  and  that  the  elected  of  the  people  are  secured 
a  possibility  for  real  participation  in  supervising  the 
legality  of  the  acts  of  the  authorities  appointed  by  us. 

The  revolutionists .  rightly  perceived  that  this 
was  not  enough,  and  struggled  desperately  to  gain 
the  whip-hand  of  their  oppressors.  But  the  army 
obeyed  its  officers,  and  blindly  exterminated  the 
fighters  for  freedom.  The  failure  of  street-fight- 
ing showed  how  much  stronger  is  modern  absolu- 
tist government  than  that  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. The  barricades,  which  carried  the  day  in 
the  French  Revolution,  are  no  protection  against 
machine-guns  mounted  in  church  belfries.  Gov- 
ernment control  of  telegraphs,  too,  has  given  the 
power-holders  a  great  advantage  over  revolution- 
ists, Without  the  means  of  achieving  any  con- 
cert of  action,  the  latter  resort  to  ill-timed  ris- 
ings, which  are  put  down  one  after  the  other.  The 
Russian  Government  had  another  advantage  in 
the  heterogeneity  of  the  population,  which  sug- 
gested to  the  autocrats  the  diabolical  game  of  set- 
ting one  element  of  the  people  on  another.  The 
peasants  were  incited  against  the  Jews  by  the  care- 
fully nursed  myth  that  the  Jews  sacrifice  a  Chris- 
tian boy  for  their  Passover  festival.  The  ''black 
hundreds" — that  is,  hooligans — were  let  loose 
upon  the  students,  and  by  the  official  dissemina- 


THE  ROOTS  OF  THE  REVOLUTION     165 

tion  of  lies  the  Tatars  were  inflamed  against  the 
Georgians  and  Armenians. 

/No  sooner  did  the  reaction  triumph  in  1906  than 
it  Vegan  to  whittle  away  the  ' *  immutable  founda- 
tions of  civil  liberty"  that  the  tsar  had  granted. 
The  police  were  present  at  all  political  gatherings 
with  orders  to  close  up  the  meeting  whenever  the 
orator  seemed  "to  wander  from  the  subject." 
The  number  of  money  penalties  imposed  on  news- 
papers rose  steadily  from  16  in  1906  to  340  in  1913. 
Despite  "freedom  of  association,"  all  assemblies 
of  students  within  the  universities  were  forbid- 
den. The  treatment  of  Moscow  University  led  to 
more  than  a  hundred  resignations  from  the  fac- 
ulty. Other  schools  were  roughly  handled,  and 
depression  seized  upon  the  students,  always  the 
most  sensitive  element  of  the  Russian  people. 
The  wide-spread  despair  after  such  glowing  hopes 
can  be  read  in  the  extraordinary  increase  of  sui- 
cide. In  Petrograd  the  increase  from  1905  to 
1908  was  fourfold.  In  Moscow  the  increase  was 
from  74  in  1906  to  614  in  1908,  and  in  the  latter 
year  nearly  two  fifths  of  the  suicides  were  of  per- 
sons under  twenty  years  of  age. 

The  Duma,  too,  was  transformed  into  something 
very  different  from  the  parliament  of  a  free  coun- 
try. The  first  Duma  tried  to  cure  the  crying  evils 
in  the  Government^  and  within  less  than  three 
months  it  was  dissolved.  The  Government  did  its 
best  to  control  the  elections,  but  the  make-up  of 
the  second  Duma  was  even  more  distasteful  to  it, 


166  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

and  after  103  days  of  existence  the  second  Duma, 
too,  was  dissolved  on  the  ground  that  "its  com- 
position was  unsatisfactory."  The  Government 
now  set  about  devising  an  electoral  law  that  would 
insure  the  political  predominance  of  the  classes  on 
which  it  thought  it  could  rely,  the  big  landlords 
and  the  great  capitalists.  The  manifesto  which 
pared  down  the  representation  of  the  peasants 
and  working-men  hypocritically  justified  such 
high-handed  defiance  of  the  popular  will  on  the 
ground  that  "As  it  was  God  who  bestowed  upon  us 
our  power  as  autocrat,  it  is  before  His  altar  that 
we  shall  answer  for  the  destinies  of  the  Russian 
state."  The  members  of  the  Duma  were  chosen 
by  electors  selected  by  class  groups  on  such  a 
basis  that  there  would  be  one  elector  for  every 
230  of  the  landed  gentry,  for  every  1000  wealthy 
citizens,  for  every  15,000  middle-class  citizens,  for 
every  60,000  peasants,  and  for  every  125,000  work- 
ing-men! To  temper  the  radicalism  to  be  ex- 
pected in  the  body  resulting  from  such  an  electoral 
system,  there  was  a  second  chamber,  half  of  its 
members  named  by  the  tsar,  and  the  elected  half 
composed  largely  of  noble  landholders. 

After  some  years  the  people  recovered  from 
their  exhaustion  and  despair,  and  there  was  a 
revival  of  activity  against  a  Government  which 
had  shown  itself  faithless  as  well  as  cruel.  In 
1914  popular  demonstrations,  political  strikes, 
and  street  barricades  made  their  appearance,  but 
suddenly  all  internal  strife  was  hushed  by  the  out- 
break of  war.    Government  and  Duma  dropped 


THE  ROOTS  OF  THE  REVOLUTION     167 

their  differences,  and  all  parties,  classes,  and  races 
united  enthusiastically  in  the  struggle  against  the 
Hohenzollerns,  who  have  always  been  the  sup- 
porters of  reaction  in  Russian  The  long-pent  en- 
ergy of  the  people  burst  forth  and  swept  aside 
bureaucratic  barriers.  The  Government,  which 
had  always  checked  every  effort  toward  nation- 
wide political  union,  was  forced  to  tolerate  an  All- 
Russian  Union  of  Zemstvos  and  an  All-Russian 
Union  of  Towns,  which  made  themselves  invalu- 
able in  the  care  of  the  wounded,  the  relief  of 
refugees,  and  the  forwarding  of  supplies  and  am- 
munition. 

But  the  old  bureaucracy  was  as  stupid  and  cor- 
rupt as  ever,  and  within  a  year  the  victorious  Rus- 
sian army  had  been  forced  out  of  Galicia  and  Po- 
land for  the  simple  reason  that  it  had  no  muni- 
tions.   For  four  hundred  miles  of  retreat  the 

■^.-■Je,-rn .Unit..  ■■  il ^-a—.^ 

brave  soldiers  sustained  an  unequal  duel  of  bay- 
onets against  cannon.  Sukhomlinof,  the  minister 
of  war,  had  totally  misled  the  generals  and  the 
Government  as  to  the  quantity  of  munitions  avail- 
able. {It  was  a  wrathful  Duma  which  convened  in 
July,  1915 ;  but  the  tsar  could  not  endure  its  plain 
speaking,  and  within  six  weeks  it  was  prorogued.' 
In  1916  there  was  formed  among  its  members 
the  "Progressive  Bloc,"  embracing  all  but  the 
extreme  right  and  left,  which  demanded  a  ministry 
responsible  to  parliament.  When  the  Duma  came 
together  in  the  autumn  there  were  signs  of  sym- 
pathy from  an  unexpected  quarter.  The  minis- 
ters of  war  and  marine  fraternized  with  the  Pro- 


168  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

gressives,  and  it  was  known  that  in  the  summer, 
when  Stiirmer  had  been  made  foreign  minister  in 
place  of  Sazonof,  the  army  took  it  as  a  move  to- 
ward a  separate  peace,  and  the  officers  began  to 
hold  meetings.  In  a  great  speech  Professor  Mi- 
liukof  boldly  exposed  in  the  Duma  Stunner's  rela- 
tions with  certain  German  agents,  and  charged 
him  with  plotting  in  the  interest  of  Germany.  The 
pro-German  sentiments  of  the  tsaritsa,  a  daughter 
of  the  Grand  Duke  of  Hesse,  and  her  entourage 
were  so  notorious  that  the  German  newspapers 
spoke  quite  openly  of  the  German  party  at  court. 
Miliukof  quoted  one  of  these  papers  in  his  speech, 
and  Stiirmer  started  to  prosecute  him  for  it;  but 
the  uproar  was  such  that  the  tsar  threw  Stiirmer 
over. 

Trepof,  who  succeeded  him  as  premier,  failed  to 
conciliate  the  Progressives,  so  after  a  very  short 
session  the  Duma  was  sent  home.  Near  the  close 
of  the  year  Trepof  was  followed  by  Prince  Golyt- 
zin,  who  proceeded  to  force  out  the  one  popular 
member  of  the  Government,  Count  Ignatyef,  the 
minister  of  education,  who  for  two  years  had  been 
multiplying  opportunities  for  higher  education  by 
starting  in  the  provincial  centers  branches  of  the 
great  state  universities.  Besides  this  "  university 
extension,"  he  had  interested  himself  in  abolish- 
ing the  percentage  restrictions  on  the  attendance 
of  Jewish  youth  in  the  higher  schools.  His  out- 
spoken ideas  made  him  distasteful  to  the  tsar,  and 
he  was  dismissed. 

In  the  meantime  tongues  all  over  Russia  had 


THE  ROOTS  OF  THE  REVOLUTION     169 

been  set  wagging  about  the  royal  family  by  .a  bit 
of  pure  medievalism,  the  killing  of  Rasputin.  For  j  . 
eight  years  this  imposter  with  the  wonderful,  hyp- 
notizing eyes  had  used  his  influence  at  court  to  the 
damage  of  Russia,  but  for  the  benefit  of  those 
who  brought  him  a  bribe  or  a  pretty  wife.  The 
tsaritsa,  hysterically  religious,  had  come  to  have 
unbounded  faith  in  this  man,  and  her  daughters 
were  brought  up  to  revere  him.  Rasputin,  who 
was  a  very  Turk  for  sensuality,  lived  with  the  high 
ladies  of  the  court  like  a  pasha  in  his  harem.  It 
needed  only  this  shame  to  alienate  from  the  dyn- 
asty its  last  prop — the  proud  landholding  nobles, 
whose  interests  had  always  been  tenderly  cared  for 
by  the  Government,  and  who  were  counted  its  sup- 
porters to  the  last  ditch. 

High  society  agreed  the  scandal  was  unendur- 
able, but  who  should  "bell  the  cat"?  Finally 
Prince  Usupof,  with  some  friends,  lured  the 
"monk"  to  a  midnight  supper,  invited  him  to  elim- 
inate himself  from  the  situation,  and  on  his  re- 
fusal shot  him  to  death.  It  is  said  that  it  took 
an  uncanny  deal  of  shooting  to  kill  him,  and  some 
of  the  party  nearly  lost  their  nerve  at  the  thought 
that  perhaps,  after  all,  he  was  "holy."  They 
drove  the  dead  man  to  a  Neva  bridge  and  thrust 
him  into  a  hole  in  the  ice  near  one  of  the  piers. 
Next  day  one  of  his  goloshes  drew  the  attention 
of  working-men,  and  they  found  his  body  caught 
by  the  clothing  on  a  bit  of  ice,  whereas  it  should 
have  disappeared  down  the  river.  The  infatuated 
tsaritsa  had  the  body  brought  to  her  palace  gar- 


170  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

den,  and  caused  to  be  built  over  it  a  mausoleum, 
where  she  could  mourn  the  "saint."  One  thinks 
of  the  Diamond  Necklace  Scandal,  which  so  greatly 
compromised  Queen  Marie  Antoinette;  but  the 
Rasputin  case  was  as  much  worse  than  the  affair 
of  the  Diamond  Necklace  as  the  rule  of  Nicholas 
II  was  worse  than  the  rule  of  Louis  XVI. 

It  was  Protopopof  who  was  destined  to  deal  the 
monarchy  its  finishing  stroke.  He  was  one  of  the 
leaders  of  the  Octobrists  in  the  Duma,  and  in  the 
summer  of  1916  he,  with  Miliukof,  had  attended 
an  Allies '  conference  in  London.  On  the  way 
home  he  stopped  in  Stockholm  and  had  a  conver- 
sation with  the  secretary  of  the  German  embassy, 
which  excited  suspicion.  Protopopof  went  to 
Tsarskoe  Selo  to  report  on  his  mission,  pleased 
the  tsar,  afterward  became  acquainted  with  Ras- 
putin, and  through  him  with  the  tsaritsa.  In  Sep- 
tember, to  the  general  amazement,  he  was  made 
minister  of  the  interior.  The  Kadets,  of  course, 
regarded  him  as  a  renegade,  and  would  not  speak 
to  him.  -This  preyed  on  him,  and  he  seemed  to 
lose  his  mental  balance. 

Certainly  his  policy  of  deliberately  provoking 
an  uprising  was  insane.  He  gathered  a  huge 
police  force  in  Petrograd,  set  up  on  roofs  and  in 
garrets  eight  hundred  machine-guns  the  British 
had  sent  to  help  repel  the  Germans,  and  then, 
when  the  Duma  opened  at  the  end  of  February, 
he  arrested  all  the  working-men's  representatives 
in  the  Central  Munition  Factories'  Committee  on 
the  charge  of  fomenting  sedition,  the  fact  being 


THE  BOOTS  OF  THE  REVOLUTION     171 

that  they  had  been  holding  their  fellows  back. 
Miliukof  warned  the  working-men  of  the  trap  set 
for  them,  and  they  bided  their  time. 

It  was,  in  fact,  food  shortage  that  fired  the  train 
that  blew  up  the  old  order.  The  people  were  tired 
of  spending  most  of  the  day  shivering  in  a  bread- 
line, and  on  March  8  they  began  to  demonstrate  in 
meetings  and  processions.  Protopopof,  with  his 
police  and  thirty  thousand  soldiers,  hoped  for  an 
uprising  which  he  might  drown  in  blood,  so  as  to 
give  the  Government  some  years'  lease  of  life. 
But  he  overlooked  the  fact  that  the  old  army, 
which  had  never  failed  the  throne,  was  under  the 
sod  or  in  German  prison  camps.  The  new  sol- 
diers, fresh  from  the  people,  had  some  idea  of  the 
role  the  army  had  always  played  in  the  system  that 
oppressed  their  fathers  and  brothers.  The  new 
officers  were  not,  like  the  old  officers,  scions  of  a 
privileged  caste,  bred  in  military  schools  to  de- 
spise the  people,  but  young  men  drawn  from  the 
middle  class  and  from  the  universities  and  techni- 
cal schools.  Moreover,  the  army  remembered  it 
was  the  tsar's  servants  who  had  stolen  and 
"grafted"  off  their  supplies,  while  it  was  the  or- 
ganizations of  the  people  who  had  sent  them 
nurses,  clothing,  medicines,  and  munitions. 

Although  some  guard  regiments  obeyed  orders 
and  repeatedly  cleared  the  streets  with  volleys, 
bad  blood  did  not  develop  between  the  people  and 
the  soldiers.  The  crowd  would  shout,  "We  're 
sorry  for, you  Pavlovskys;  you  had  to  do  your 
duty."    The  break  of  the  military  seems  to  have 


172  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL         W** 

come  late  on  March  11.  A  Cossack  patrol  was 
quietly  watching  a  procession  of  manifestants 
when  the  latter  were  brutally  attacked  by  a  raging 
detachment  of  police.  All  at  once  a  young  officer 
ordered  his  men  to  draw  sabers  and  led  them  in  a 
charge  on  the  police.  Then  began  the  fraterniz- 
ing between  soldiers  and  people.  Regiment  after 
regiment  wavered,  and  then  sent  a  delegation  to 
offer  its  services  to  the  Duma.  Some  officers  were 
shot  by  their  own  men,  but  there  were  instances 
in  which  the  former  took  the  initiative.  Led  by 
their  officers,  the  famous  Preobrazhensky  Guards, 
all  of  giant  stature,  marched  to  the  Winter  Pal- 
ace, stood  at  arms,  and  sent  in  a  deputation  with 
certain  demands ;  but  they  found  no  Government. 
A  few  hours  later  they  were  guarding  the  Duma 
in  its  palace.  Troops  were  brought  in  from  the 
suburbs,  but  they  were  won  over.  The  Semyon- 
ovsky  regiment  made  a  show  of  fight,  but  was 
quickly  surrounded.  As  soon  as  the  arsenal  was 
stormed  the  revolutionists  armed  themselves  and 
joined  the  soldiers  in  fighting  the  police,  who  from 
roofs,  garrets,  and  church  towers  worked  their 
machine-guns  on  the  people.  The  insurgents 
dashed  about  in  armored  cars  and  automobiles, 
searched  buildings  for  police  snipers,  and  put  un- 
der arrest  the  principal  functionaries  of  the  old 
regime. 

In  the  meanwhile  was  forming  a  new  govern- 
ment, which  gained  control  so  quickly  as  to  make 
this  Eussian  revolution  one  of  the  shortest  and 
least  bloody  in  history.    On  March  11  the  presi- 


THE  ROOTS  OF  THE  REVOLUTION     173 

dent  of  the  Duma,  Rodzianko,  telegraphed  to  the 
tsar,  who  was  at  army  headquarters,  the  facts  of 
the  situation,  and  warned  him  that  some  one  en- 
joying the  country's  confidence  must  be  intrusted 
with  the  forming  of  a  new  government.  To  this 
and  to  his  later  telegrams  to  the  tsar  there  was 
no  reply.  On  the  morrow  the  Government  pro- 
rogued the  Duma,  but  rumors  of  the  falling  away 
of  its  troops  were  in  the  air,  and  the  members  hesi- 
tated. Should  they  leave  the  promising  young 
revolutionary  movement  without  direction  or 
should  they  risk  Siberia  by  disobeying  the  decree! 
They  stayed  and  left  it  to  their  officers  and  party 
leaders  to  decide  their  course  of  action.  By  noon 
the  Duma  was  called  together,  and  a  few  hours 
later  was  appointed  a  provisional  government  to 
restore  order  in  Petrograd  and  "to  have  com- 
munications with  all  persons  and  institutions,"  a 
cautious,  non-committal  phrase.  The  next  day  all 
Petrograd,  realizing  that  the  revolution  was  won, 
thronged  the  streets  rejoicing,  although  the  rat- 
tat-tat  of  machine-guns  was  in  the  air,  and  in  fact 
more  people  were  killed  on  the  thirteenth  and 
fourteenth  of  March  than  in  the  decisive  days  of 
March  11  and  12.  In  a  word,  the  revolution  had 
triumphed  in  the  minds  of  the  people  before  it  was 
accomplished  in  the  streets. 

Many  police  were  killed  fighting,  but  no  one  was 
murdered  after  he  had  been  made  prisoner.  Ar- 
rested persons  were  continually  arriving  at  the 
Duma,  and  none  of  those  taken  under  its  authority 
lost  his  life.    There  was  some  demand  among  the 


174  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

soldiers  who  brought  Soukhomlinof  that  he  be 
executed  at  once,  but  the  eloquence  of  Kerensky 
saved  him.  Thanks  to  previous  removal  of  vodka 
from  the  scene,  not  one  bloodthirsty  outbreak,  not 
one  massacre,  stains  the  pages  of  this  revolution. 

While  perhaps  in  all  a  thousand  persons  lost 
their  lives  in  Petrograd,  elsewhere  the  action  of 
the  capital  was  accepted  as  decisive.  There  was 
no  La  Vendee  for  royalists  to  take  refuge  in. 
Moral  forces  had  undermined  and  eaten  into  the 
tsardom  until  it  had  become  a  mere  shell.  Out- 
side of  the  Government's  own  personnel,  virtually 
no  one  believed  in  it  or  wanted  it  to  continue. 
Never  has  an  absolute  government  been  so  effete 
at  the  end.  It  was  due  to  fall  a  generation  ago, 
but  machine-guns  and  secret  police,  agents  pro- 
vocateurs and  pogroms  had  held  it  up  until,  when 
it  finally  came  down,  it  floated  away  in  dust. 


CHAPTER  IX 
RETURNING  REVOLUTIONISTS 

WHEN  the  tsar  fell,  from  all  parts  of  the 
world  came  flocking  the  surviving  revolu- 
tionists, eager  to  enter  the  Promised  Land  with 
their  people.  No  one  seemed  to  know  the  number 
of  this  repatriated  host.  It  was  reported  that 
twenty  thousand  sledges  were  called  into  use  by 
the  Provisional  Government  in  order  to  bring  the 
political  exiles  out  of  Northern  Siberia.  It  is  cer- 
tain that  up  to  June  23, 1917,  more  than  a  thousand 
refugees  had  passed  in  through  Yokohama  alone. 
I  had  an  opportunity  to  observe  many  of  these, 
and  their  appearance  boded  ill  for  their  native 
land.  For  the  most  part,  they  were  of  the  lowest 
class  of  Russian  Jews,  dirty,  sordid,  repulsive,  not 
genuine  revolutionists  at  all,  but  ignorant  self- 
seeking  proletarians.  One  of  them  on  our  boat 
tried  to  smuggle  into  the  country  twenty-three 
pairs  of  shoes  and  fifteen  pairs  of  gloves,  and 
made  great  outcry  when  he  was  required  to  pay 
duty  on  these  goods.  It  was  his  sort  which,  on 
leaving  the  quarters  which  had  been  provided  for 
them  at  Vladivostok,  stole  the  silver  from  the 
table  and  the  blankets  and  pillows  from  the  beds. 
The  real  revolutionists  in  New  York,  Pittsburgh, 
and  elsewhere  had  protested  against  the  repatria- 

175 


176  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

tion  of  these  imposters  at  Eussia's  expense,  but 
their  protests  went  unheeded.  It  seemed  as  if  the 
Eussian  consuls — appointees  of  the  old  regime,  be 
it  noted — took  a  malicious  pleasure  in  sending 
back  persons  certain  to  make  trouble. 

For  nearly  a  month,  on  the  other  hand,  on  the 
Pacific,  in  Japan,  and  in  Vladivostok  I  was  asso- 
ciated with  a  group  of  twenty-two  political  refu- 
gees of  a  high  type,  and  from  them  I  formed  some 
estimate  of  the  effect  the  leadership  of  the  return- 
ing revolutionists  would  have  upon  the  course  of 
the- social  movement  in  Eussia.  Fifteen  of  these 
persons  had  been  arrested  forty  times  in  all,  and 
they  had  served  in  prison  an  aggregate  of  twenty- 
two  years.  Five  of  them  had  been  exiled  to  Si- 
beria and  had  spent  there  altogether  five  years. 
None  of  them  had  committed  any  deed  contrary  to 
American  law.  They  were  persecuted  for  engag- 
ing in  socialist  propaganda  and  for  organizing 
workingmen.  But  for  two  Letts,  all  the  party 
were  Jews.  None  of  them  was  over  thirty-five 
years  of  age,  and  most  of  them,  after  several 
years'  residence  in  the  United  States,  had  not 
passed  the  late  twenties.  Indeed,  the  critical  time 
in  the  life  of  the  Eussian  intelligentsia  was  the  late 
teens  and  the  early  twenties.  If  they  passed  this 
period  of  self-assertion  and  generous  ideals  with- 
out running  afoul  of  the  tsar's  government,  they 
would  probably  compromise  with  it  for  the  rest 
of  their  lives. 

All  were  gymnasium  bred,  and  a  few  were  uni- 
versity trained.    Because  of  this,  perhaps,  they 


RETURNING  REVOLUTIONISTS      177 

were  remarkably  objective  in  their  attitude  to- 
ward the  minions  and  policies  of  which  they  had 
been  the  victims.  Uplifted  by  the  glowing 
thought  that  at  last  Russia  was  free,  they  re- 
counted their  sufferings  with  a  detached  air,  as  if 
they  were  offering  historical  matter.  Some  of 
their  stories  helped  one  to  understand  the  spirit  of 
the  revolutionists,  as  well  as  that  of  the  old 
regime. 

Gregory  B  got  into  trouble  at  the  age  of 
eighteen,  when  he  was  about  to  enter  a  technical 
school.  The  discovery  in  his  house  of  a  little 
press  for  printing  leaflets  led  to  the  arrest  of  the 
committee  of  the  local  Social  Revolutionary  Party. 
Membership  in  this  committee,  referred  to  always 
by  the  court  as  a  u criminal  organization,"  was  a 
grave  offense.  Of  its  nine  members,  one  was  a 
spy.  The  rest,  after  eleven  months'  confinement, 
were  brought  to  trial.  Two  were  released,  be- 
cause nothing  was  found  to  prove  their  member- 
ship, three  were  sentenced  to  Siberia  for  life,  and 
the  others  to  four  years'  hard  labor  in  chains 
and  afterward  to  Siberia  for  life.  All  citizenship 
rights,  of  course,  were  forfeited. 

After  their  condemnation  no  distinction  was 
made  between  them  and  common  criminals.  Alike 
they  were  whipped  at  will  by  the  underlings  of 
the  jail.  While  awaiting  transportation  the 
young  politicals  were  transferred  to  a  jail  in 
which  typhus  raged,  and  out  of  thirteen,  all  but 
B  had  typhus,  while  two  died.  On  the  jour- 
ney  to    Siberia   B   fell   sick   and   was   left   for 


178  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

three  weeks  in  the  Tula  prison.  Here,  too,  there 
was  typhus,  and  there  were  no  doctors  to  attend 
the  sick.  Packed  in  cells,  sick  and  dying  lay  side 
by  side  on  straw  mattresses  on  the  floor.  The 
dead  were  left  as  much  as  a  day  and  a  half  before 
removal.  After  his  convalescence,  while  kept 
standing  in  line  for  six  hours  to  be  identified  be- 
fore being  delivered  to  the  transport  officer,  B 
fainted.    He  was  forwarded  later. 

The  prisoners  rode  third  class  and  were  allowed 
only  five  cents  a  day  for  food,  which,  of  course, 
provided  nothing  more  than  dry  bread.  But  the 
revolutionists '  "Red  Cross"  had  supplied  the 
politicals  with  tea-pots  that  proved  to  have  double 
bottoms,  between  which  were  hidden  ruble  notes  to 
enable  them  to  buy  food  en  route.  Lumps  of 
sugar,  too,  had  been  given  them,  and  some  of  these 
had  ten-ruble  gold-pieces  in  them.  In  every  party 
of  exiles  the  politicals  grouped  themselves  to- 
gether, pooled  their  money,  and  left  the  spending 
of  it  to  an  elected  leader.  Both  while  traveling 
and  in  Siberia  they  shared  everything  in  common. 

In  the  depot-prisons  that  marked  the  stages  of 
their  journey  the  conditions  were  horrible.  They 
slept  in  a  huge  hall  on  the  bare  floor,  hand  under 
head.  The  floor  was  covered  with  bodies,  and 
many  prisoners  had  to  stand  until  some  spot  on 
the  floor  was  vacated.  All  night  long  no  one  was 
allowed  to  go  to  the  latrines  in  the  courtyard. 
There  were  open  tubs  for  toilet  purposes,  but  no 
paper,  water,  or  towels.  Their  underwear  had 
been  taken  away,  and  for  weeks  they  were  com- 


RETURNING  REVOLUTIONISTS      179 

pelled  to  wear  the  same  rough  prison-shirt. 
When  the  vermin  became  unbearable,  the  convict 
would  take  off  this  garment  and  stamp  on  it,  in 
order  to  drive  out  the  lice  and  fleas.  No  such  bar- 
barism had  been  contemplated  when  the  prisons 
were  built,  but  as  the  Government's  war  on  the 
people  became  more  desperate,  an  unprecedented 
number  of  politicals  were  jailed  and  transported. 
The  prison-depots  were  overcrowded  and  con- 
ditions became  terrible.  Later  B  read  Ken- 
nan's  " Siberia  and  the  Exile  System,"  which 
describes  a  much  earlier  situation.  He  found  it 
tame  in  comparison  with  what  he  had  experienced 
and  had  known  to  happen  to  his  friends. 

In  March,  nine  months  after  setting  out  from 
South  Russia,  he  arrived  at  Krasnoyarsk  on  the 
Trans-Siberian  Railway.  He  was  kept  there  a 
month  till  the  Yenesei  River  should  be  open.  For 
nearly  four  days  the  party  of  politicals — now  some 
sixty  persons — floated  north,  down  the  river,  in 
cattle-barges  till  they  reached  an  affluent,  the 
Tunguskaya.  After  a  forced  march  of  three  days 
they  were  put  in  boats  which  they  rowed  and  towed 
up  the  river  for  some  hundreds  of  miles. 

At  their  destination  they  found  themselves  in  a 
vast  primeval  forest.  It  was  so  dense  that  only 
on  the  river  could  one  ever  see  the  sun.  Winter 
lasted  eight  months,  and  the  cold  was  so  intense 
that  your  nose  would  freeze  before  you  had  gone 
fifty  paces  from  the  door.  For  weeks  at  a  time 
no  one  went  out  but  the  luckless  wight  whose  turn 
it  was  to  chop  away  the  ice  about  the  water-hole 


180  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

on  the  river  and  keep  it  open  for  the  villagers' 
use !  Huge  trees  were  cut  up  into  colossal  piles  of 
fire-wood  to  keep  the  sheet-iron  stove  going  full 
blast  all  winter,  and  yet  the  ink  would  freeze  as 
you  wrote  at  your  table  by  the  window.  The  exiles 
lived  in  a  big  log-house  that  was  divided  into  two 
parts,  one  for  winter,  the  other  for  summer.  Dur- 
ing winter  the  vermin  and  insects  that  infested 
the  summer  quarters  would  * 'freeze  out."  Mos- 
quitoes were  an  unspeakable  torment,  and  there 
was  no  doctor  for  a  hundred  leagues. 

The  exiles  fished,  hunted  fur-bearing  animals, 
and  raised  some  potatoes  and  barley.  Having  no 
flour-mills,  they  ground  their  grain  in  rough  hand- 
mills.  The  bread  they  made  from  the  coarse  flour 
became  like  a  stone  after  the  first  day.  Some 
hired  themselves  to  the  natives  for  their  keep  and 
became  virtually  their  slaves,  mowing  grass  with 
the  scythe  on  the  islands  in  the  river.  The  police 
officer  in  charge  of  the  exiles  suffered  so  from  lone- 
liness that  he  sought  to  fraternize  with  the  exiles ; 
in  fact,  he  spent  all  his  salary  to  provide  them  with 
eatables,  in  order  to  get  them  to  talk  with  him. 
As  they  would  not  admit  him  to  their  confidence,  he 
took  to  drinking  vodka  when  the  winter  was  nearly 
over,  and  this  gave  B  his  chance  to  escape. 

Concealed  in  the  false  bottom  of  a  little  box 
containing  eye-glasses  came  money  and  a  forged 
passport,  printed  by  the  bureau  the  revolutionists 
maintained  for  this  purpose.  He  hired  a  native 
with  a  horse  and  sledge  to  drive  him  over  to  an 
arm  of  the  river  where  there  were  no  exiles  or 


KETURNING  REVOLUTIONISTS      181 

police  officers.  Then  he  traveled  down  the  ice  in 
the  role  of  a  fur  merchant,  plying  suspicious  per- 
sons with  vodka  and  bluffing  village  mayors. 
Boarding  a  slow  train,  he  found  himself  in  a  third- 
class  car,  the  only  civilian  among  officers,  gen- 
darmes, and  railroad  officials.  For  nights  he  was 
unable  to  sleep  because  of  anxiety.  During  the 
day,  to  win  the  confidence  of  his  companions,  he 
played  cards  and  assumed  the  role  of  a  "black 
hundred' '  rough,  swearing  liberally,  cursing  the 
beggars  who  importuned  him  at  stations,  and  buy- 
ing pious  Rasputin  leaflets  of  a  hawker.  What  a 
commentary  on  the  spirit  of  the  tsar's  Government 
that  to  make  a  good  impression  one  must  simulate 
ignorance,  brutality,  and  superstition,  whereas  in- 
telligence, humanity,  and  refinement  laid  one  open 
to  suspicion ! 

The  Russian  hotel-keeper  must  send  at  once  to 
the  police-station  the  passport  of  every  guest  who 
registers,  so  B  wandered  about  in  Omsk  for 
hours,  not  daring  to  put  up  at  a  hotel.  Luckily 
he  fell  in  with  a  prison  acquaintance,  and  at  length 
found  shelter  in  a  revolutionists'  boarding-house. 
His  emotions  on  sitting  down  to  a  bounteous  sup- 
per-table with  white  napery,  china,  and  silver, 
after  two  years  of  prison-food  and  the  half -rotten 
fish  of  the  far  North,  were  overwhelming.  Some 
weeks  later  he  was  smuggled  to  the  Galician  fron- 
tier at  night,  in  the  straw  at  the  bottom  of  a  cart, 
and  at  dawn  he  waded  a  creek  that  divides  Russia 
from  Austria.  In  the  intoxication  of  liberty  and 
safety,  he  capered,  shouted,  sang,  and  insisted  on 


182  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

walking,  instead  of  riding,  till  the  peasant  driver 
of  his  cart  deemed  him  mad. 

The  wife  of  a  sunny-haired  Lett,  a  raven-locked 
Jewess  with  a  soul  like  a  flame,  first  tasted  prison 
when  she  was  nineteen.  Released  under  the  1905 
amnesty,  she  was  later  arrested  in  a  general 
round-up  and  kept  for  six  months  awaiting  trial, 
shut  up  with  fifteen  others  in  one  room.  It  was 
a  frightful  strain  on  the  nerves,  and  some  came 
to  hate  the  others  from  the  enforced  proximity. 
Released  in  the  end,  she  enjoyed  freedom  till  the 
close  of  1907,  when  she  met  in  a  house  near  Tver 
representatives  of  the  Social  Revolutionary  party 
of  central  Russia.  A  clerk  in  the  police-station 
warned  them  that  they  were  to  be  raided,  so  they 
hid  all  their  documents  and  the  men  scattered  into 
the  woods,  while  the  two  women-members  were 
concealed  in  the  house  of  a  doctor.  But  a  big 
force  of  gendarmes  and  Cossacks  surrounded  the 
woods  and  caught  the  men,  while  the  houses  for 
miles  around  were  searched  till  the  women  were 
found.  The  two  women  were  driven  to  town  in  an 
open  carriage,  escorted  by  fifty  troopers  with 
drawn  sabers.  The  amazed  peasants  who  met 
this  stately  procession  crossed  themselves,  sup- 
posing the  women  were  on  their  way  to  execution. 

As  there  was  no  evidence  against  her,  the  Jewess 
never  came  to  trial,  but  was  sentenced  to  four 
years  in  Siberia  "by  administrative  process." 

Prisoners  were  forwarded  by  stages,  spending 
some  time  at  the  local  prisons  on  the  way,  and  in 
revolutionary  circles  these  prisons  acquired  repu- 


Pool  in  front  of  a  Bokhara  Mosque 


In  front  of  the  Medresseh,  Bokhara 


Mausolea  erected  by  Tamerlane  in  Samarcand 


RETURNING  REVOLUTIONISTS      185 

tations,  as  hotels  do  among  commercial  travelers. 
A  "free"  prison  was  one  that  let  you  go  from  one 
room  to  another  and  pass  most  of  the  day  in  the 
prison-yard.  Samara  had  a  "very  nice"  prison. 
Moscow's  prison  was  the  worst.  Here  the  party 
of  fifteen  were  kept  for  six  days  shut  in  one  small, 
unventilated  room.  In  Riazan  prison,  out  of  mal- 
ice, the  warden  put  Mrs.  B  with  common  crim- 
inals, which  is  against  regulations.  But  this  in- 
tense, self -devoted  girl  so  affected  the  four  illiter- 
ate thieves  and  prostitutes  in  her  cell  that  for  her 
sake  they  cut  out  oaths  and  obscenity,  smuggled 
her  newspapers,  guarded  her  watch  and  purse,  and 
learned  to  mess  en  commun,  as  the  politicals  do. 
Before  she  left  them  they  had  become  quite  social- 
ized by  her  influence. 

The  middle  of  May  found  her  on  a  barge  sweep- 
ing through  the  primeval  northern  forest  on  the 
broad  bosom  of  the  swift,  majestic  Yenesei.  In 
six  days  she  came  to  her  destination — a  village 
of  thirteen  houses  where  the  sun  never  sets  in  sum- 
mer. She  was  allowed  $7.50  a  month  for  subsist- 
ence and  was  personally  free,  but  she  could  not  go 
outside  a  certain  district.  Here  in  this  far-north- 
ern wilderness  nothing  was  grown.  The  people 
lived  by  hunting  and  fishing.  Near  them  was  a 
little  horde  of  pure  savages,  the  Yenesei  Ostiaks, 
who  live  in  tents,  never  wash  or  remove  their 
clothes,  and  are  unspeakably  filthy.  By  a  study 
of  their  weapons  and  ways  the  experts  of  our 
American  Bureau  of  Ethnology  prove  that  these 
are  really  North  American  Indians,  and  yet  these 


186  KUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

two  hundred  and  fifty  beings  dwell  in  the  depths 
of  Siberia  five  thousand  miles  away  from  the  near- 
est of  their  race !  Mail  reached  the  village  during 
only  half  the  year,  three  months  in  summer  and 
three  months  in  winter.  About  once  a  fortnight 
in  summer  the  mail  arrived  in  a  row-boat.  Im- 
agine how  the  exiles  waited  for  this  last  link  which 
connected  them  with  the  world  of  civilization  and 
ideas !  If  the  boat  failed  to  appear  on  the  regular 
day,  they  waited  up  all  night,  in  order  to  get  their 
letters  promptly  when  it  finally  came  in. 

Barges  laden  with  various  natural  products  are 
towed  up  the  Yenesei  River,  and  they  stop  at  this 
village  to  take  on  fire-wood  for  the  tug.  Loaded 
with  boxes  of  fish,  the  last  barge  of  the  summer 
stopped  for  ten  minutes  at  the  village  and,  facing 
the  dreadful  winter,  the  girl-revolutionist  found 
eloquence  enough  to  induce  the  barge-captain  to 
consent  to  help  her  escape,  although  it  meant 
prison  for  him  if  he  were  caught  assisting 
an  exile.  She  ran  to  her  cabin,  caught  up  a  few 
things,  and  with  but  thirty  rubles  in  her  purse 
slipped  aboard  before  the  plank  was  drawn  in. 
For  three  weeks  her  refuge  was  this  barge,  slowly 
moving  against  the  hurrying  river.  The  five  men 
on  the  barge  were  decent  fellows,  but  still  she 
stayed  below  all  day  through  fear  of  being  seen 
from  other  barges.  Only  at  night  did  she  venture 
on  deck.  Perhaps  some  one  on  another  barge 
glimpsed  her,  for  at  the  frontier  of  the  province 
the  police  searched  the  barge  with  great  care. 
The  girl  lay  hid  between  crates  of  fish,  and  once 


EETURNING  REVOLUTIONISTS      187 

she  gave  herself  up  for  lost  when  she  looked  right 
into  the  eyes  of  a  Cossack  who  was  peering  about 
for  her.  But  while  she  was  looking  toward  the 
light,  he  was  looking  toward  the  dark  and  saw 
nothing. 

At  Yeneseisk,  where  the  barges  were  unloaded, 
the  police  again  searched  the  barge.  From  noon 
till  late  at  night  she  lay  on  a  f  ourteen-inch  shelf  in 
an  airless  cupboard,  unable  to  turn  over  and  ter- 
rified lest  she  had  been  entirely  forgotten  by  the 
captain  and  so  would  die  of  suffocation.  But  he 
came  after  dark  and  let  her  out.  Although  for  a 
while  she  was  paralyzed  and  could  not  stand,  she 
finally  reached  the  cabin  of  sympathizers,  who  hid 
her  for  a  few  days  till  a  steamboat  was  starting 
up  the  river.  She  went  aboard  with  other  pas- 
sengers, but  as  the  police  were  examining  them 
very  suspiciously,  she  begged  a  sailor  to  let  her 
have  the  use  of  his  room.  After  the  boat  got 
under  way,  and  as  she  was  about  to  come  on  deck, 
she  caught  sight  of  one  of  the  same  Cossacks  who 
had  escorted  her  party  down  the  river  two  months 
before.  In  terror  of  being  recognized  by  him,  she 
lay  low  the  whole  of  the  journey,  hidden  in  the 
room  of  a  sailor  and  his  wife,  and  during  the  day 
she  slept  in  the  bunk  that  he  occupied  at  night. 

On  her  return  rail-journey  she  experienced  two 
hours  of  dread  in  the  station  at  Samara.  For  a 
long  time  she  had  worked  among  the  factory  op- 
eratives of  this  town,  and  when  the  police  went 
through  her  train,  searching  it  thoroughly,  she 
expected  to  be  recognized.     She  sat  in  a  third- 


188  BUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

class  carriage  with  some  old  women,  her  head  bent 
over  her  sewing,  and  they  did  not  molest  her.  On 
this  train  one  escaping  exile  who  was  in  great  fear 
of  being  arrested  tied  his  head  up  in  a  handker- 
chief and  lay  groaning,  as  if  with  toothache.  The 
ruse  succeeded. 

An  experience  of  this  girl's  while  " organizing " 
in  Samara  shows  how  truly  the  revolutionist  lived 
the  life  of  the  hunted.  Searches  and  arrests  were 
so  frequent  that  she  feared  to  occupy  her  bed,  lest 
the  police,  who  generally  make  arrests  at  night, 
should  swoop  down  on  her.  Accordingly,  she  ar- 
ranged with  her  landlady  to  sleep  at  a  friend's 
house  every  night,  and  the  landlady's  little  boy 
was  to  stop  at  this  friend's  on  his  way  to  school 
and  notify  her  if  the  coast  was  clear,  so  that  she 
might  return  to  her  room.  One  morning  he  re- 
ported that  the  police  were  in  her  room,  so  she 
stayed  away.  For  three  days  and  nights  these 
human  ferrets  waited  to  spring  their  trap,  and 
when  finally  they  left  in  disgust,  they  took  with 
them  everything  she  possessed,  leaving  her  only 
the  clothes  in  which  she  stood. 

The  stories  of  the  exiles  bring  out  their  wonder- 
ful loyalty  to  one  another.  One  reason  why  Mrs. 
B  refused  to  join  the  two  parties  of  her  fellow- 
exiles  that  attempted  to  escape  by  walking 
through  the  woods  five  hundred  miles  to  Yeneseisk 
was  that  she  knew  that  if  she,  the  only  woman, 
gave  out,  the  whole  party  would  be  lost,  because 
they  never  would  abandon  her.  A  revolutionary, 
too,  could  always  count  on  unlimited  hospitality 


EETURNING  REVOLUTIONISTS     189 

and  help  from  any  other  revolutionary.  The  fel- 
lowship of  "comrades"  throughout  the  Russian 
Empire  recalls  that  bond  which  knit  the  early 
Christians  throughout  the  smaller  and  less  popu- 
lous Roman  Empire. 

The  revolutionists  in  our  party  were  absorbed 
in  the  welfare  of  the  hand-working  class  to  the 
point  of  ignoring  the  interests  of  all  other  classes. 
They  frankly  admitted  that  the  nation  meant  noth- 
ing to  them.  Sensitive  to  human  relations,  they 
found  it  revolting  to  be  drawn  about  in  Japan  by 
the  man  who  pulled  a  jinrikisha.  Some  were  so 
horrified  at  the  obvious  poverty  of  the  masses  that 
the  beauty  of  Japan  was  lost  on  them,  and  they 
hurried  to  get  out  of  the  country  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible. 

One  is  struck  by  their  lack  of  such  discipline 
as  is  gained  by  experience  in  conducting  a  public 
meeting.  They  will  not  consent  to  hold  their 
peace  till  the  other  fellow  has  had  his  say.  They 
interrupt  one  another  freely,  and  sometimes  there 
will  be  four  or  five  speaking  at  once,  each  trying 
to  dominate  the  rest  with  his  voice  and  paying  no 
attention  to  what  another  is  saying.  They  do 
not  seem  to  perceive  that  this  practice  defeats  the 
primary  purpose  of  speaking,  namely,  to  be  lis- 
tened to. 

At  the  height  of  some  ardent  discussion  the  din 
becomes  deafening,  several  pouring  forth  a  tor- 
rent of  argument,  expostulation,  or  remonstrance, 
and  no  one  able  to  follow  the  speech  of  any  other. 
Even  then  there  will  be  some  who  break  in,  hoping 


190  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

others  will  drop  out  or  pause  for  breath,  but  they 
cease  when  they  see  it  is  hopeless.  Yet  no  one 
loses  his  temper  at  being  interrupted,  because 
often  he  has  been  the  interruptor  and,  besides,  he 
is  speaking  mainly  "to  get  it  out  of  his  system." 

Nearly  all  regard  America  as  a  hopelessly  "cap- 
italistic" society  and  expect  that  in  a  few  years 
Russia  will  far  surpass  America  in  the  realization 
of  democracy.  That  three  Russians  out  of  five 
are  illiterate  and  that  none  have  experience  in 
working  free  institutions  has  no  weight  with  them. 
They  count  on  the  unlettered  peasants  to  choose 
abler  representatives  than  do  American  farmers 
and  wage-earners.  The  press  will  not  mislead,  as 
does  the  commercial  American  press,  they  declare, 
and  the  Russians  will  presently  have  a  constitu- 
tion so  much  better  than  ours  that  we  will  hang 
our  heads.  In  it  will  be  safeguards  against  all 
the  evil  practices  and  abuses  by  which  "invisible 
government"  has  often  mocked  the  wishes  of  the 
American  people. 

The  dictum  of  Lester  F.  Ward,  accepted  by  all 
sociologists,  that  the  foundation  of  a  sure  social 
advance  must  be  laid  in  universal  education,  does 
not  appeal  to  them.  The  one  thing  needful  is  to 
get  rid  of  "capitalism"  root  and  branch.  They 
have  no  anxiety  whatsoever  as  to  the  success  of 
the  socialist  state  under  the  most  democratic  con- 
trol among  a  people  so  backward  in  knowledge  and 
political  experience. 

On  one  point,  indeed,  I  must  admit  they  score. 
Among  Russians,  it  is  a  compliment  to  a  man  to 


RETURNING  REVOLUTIONISTS      191 

say  that  he  has  been  "active  in  politics,"  for  it 
implies  that  he  possesses  public  spirit  and  cour- 
age. One  of  my  students  used  to  tell  us  artlessly 
that  in  Russia  he  had  been  a  "politician,"  and  it 
was  years  before  he  caught  the  bad  odor  of  that 
word  among  Americans.  Every  one  of  influence 
among  the  Russian  masses  to-day  has  a  prison  or  a 
Siberian  record,  and  it  will  be  at  least  fifteen  years 
before  these  men  of  proven  sincerity  and  devotion 
will  have  to  compete  for  popular  favor  with  the 
self-seeking  professional  politician.  For  a  while, 
then,  the  green  citizenry  of  Russia  will  remain 
untroubled  by  these  parasites  upon  popular  gov- 
ernment. One  must  grant,  too,  that  the  Russians 
take  the  state  very  seriously,  and  they  will  not  let 
self-seekers  infest  their  politics,  as  Americans 
used  to  do,  from  sheer  indifference  to  public  af- 
fairs. The  quality  of  the  men  elected  to  the  first 
and  second  Dumas  seems  to  show  that  the  Rus- 
sian masses  are  shrewder  in  appraising  character 
than  equally  ignorant  Americans  would  be. 
Here  their  gift  of  intuition  stands  them  in  good 
stead. 

In  Petrograd  in  the  summer  not  a  man  I  talked 
with  anticipated  the  actual  course  the  Russian 
Revolution  lms  followed.  No  one  foresaw  the  tri- 
umph of  socialists  over  liberals,  or  of  Bolshevist 
opinion  over  Menshevist  opinion.  No  one  looked 
for  a  "proletarian  dictatorship"  and  the  violent 
redistribution  of  property.  Why  is  it  that  the 
actual  development  falsified  all  prophecies?  I 
believe  the  cause  was  the  introduction  of  a  factor 


\^ 


192  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

which  was  not  present  when  the  first  revolution 
took  place.  It  was  the  returning  revolutionists, 
at  least  one  hundred  thousand  strong,  who  gave 
it  the  radical  stamp. 

Bear  in  mind  that  the  one  or  two  hundred  thou- 
sand Eussians  with  solid  learning  and  well-trained 
minds  are  encompassed  by  perhaps  a  million  of 
half-baked  people  who  have  graduated  from  the 
gymnasium  and  attended  a  university.  In  the 
university,  despite  the  excellence  of  their  profes- 
sors, the  latter  profited  little,  because  of  the  bad- 
ness of  their  foundation.  This  foundation  is  bad 
because  the  Government,  in  its  endeavor  to  get  a 
' '  safe ' '  product,  wrecked  secondary  education.  A 
succession  of  reactionary  ministers  of  education 
tried  all  sorts  of  experiments  with  the  curriculum, 
their  sole  motive  being  to  curb  the  growth  of  lib- 
eral political  ideas.  Gradually  the  solid  studies 
were  cut  out,  while  little  of  value  was  put  in  their 
place.  When  these  poorly  prepared  young  people 
come  to  the  university,  they  cannot  do  work  of  real 
university  character.  They  never  get  into  the 
more  advanced  and  intensive  work  of  the  semi- 
naries. They  attend  lectures,  memorize  texts  and 
"cram"  to  pass  examinations.  Of  the  body  of 
students,  perhaps  one  tenth  obtains  a  genuine  uni- 
versity education.  The  rest,  incapable  of  close 
thinking,  are  guided  by  memorized  formulae. 
Now,  the  Marxian  philosophy  provides  clear,  sim- 
ple formulas  as  to  social  evolution,  and  for  the  last 
twenty  years  nine  tenths  of  the  Eussian  students 


EETURNING  REVOLUTIONISTS      193 

have  accepted  these  Marxian  formulas  and  em- 
ployed them  with  little  reflection. 

The  revolutionists  were  mainly  of  the  intelli- 
gentsia. All  were  young  when  they  came  into  con- 
flict with  the  bureaucracy  and  practically  all  were 
socialists.  What,  now,  would  happen  to  those 
forced  to  pass  their  years  in  Siberia,  imprisoned 
at  hard  labor,  or  banished  to  some  remote  dis- 
trict? Is  it  not  likely  that  the  doctrines  for  dis- 
seminating which  they  were  persecuted  would 
thenceforth  seem  sacred  in  their  eyes?  In  any 
case,  there  was  no  opportunity  for  them  to  cor- 
rect their  formulas  by  intensive  study  of  the  Rus- 
sian common  people  and  their  real  needs.  Such 
studies  ended  with  their  arrest,  and  in  Siberia 
they  lacked  libraries,  teachers,  and  stimulating 
association.  So  they  made  no  advance  in  eco- 
nomic or  sociological  wisdom,  but  remained  under 
the  power  of  their  adolescent  ideas.  They  came 
back  last  spring  embittered  against  the  order  that 
had  persecuted  them,  enjoying  an  immense  influ- 
ence because  of  their  sufferings,  and  proceeded  to 
preach  the  simple  but  inadequate  formulas  of 
their  youth. 

Still  worse  was  the  influence  of  the  revolution- 
ists who  returned  from  foreign  countries  in  which 
they  had  found  refuge.  They  were  most  numer- 
ous in  Switzerland,  and  especially  German  Switz- 
erland (Bern).  Many  were  in  Paris,  while  a  few 
were  in  England.  Germany  had  no  great  number, 
for  she  discouraged   their  coming,   fearing  the 


194  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

effect  on  her  own  people.  America  got  few  revo- 
lutionists, save  the  Jews,  who  for  certain  reasons 
preferred  this  country.  Now,  these  refugees  lived 
and  associated  much  with  one  another.  Many,  in 
fact,  learned  nothing  whatever  of  the  language  of 
the  country  in  which  they  lived.  They  studied 
neither  the  Eussian  common  people  nor  the  people 
of  the  country  of  their  sojourn,  but  incessantly 
discussed  with  one  another  socialist  doctrines, 
read  socialist  literature,  and  split  into  schools  that 
carried  on  a  newspaper  and  pamphlet  polemic 
against  one  another.  This  made  them  clever  in 
using  and  defending  their  ideas,  but  gave  them  no 
deeper  knowledge  of  the  tendencies  and  needs  of 
the  Eussian  rural  population.  As  for  the  effort 
that  thinkers  are  making  to  reach  a  rational  inter- 
pretation of  society,  they  ignored  it,  because  it  did 
not  emanate  from  avowed  socialists.  So  naive 
was  their  use  of  authority  that  my  ship-mates 
would  meet  my  statistics  from  the  United  States 
Census  with  the  demur,  "But  the  New  York  Call 
says— -"  <&ix; 

Thus  it  came  to  pass  that  these  two  streams  of 
revolutionists,  from  Siberia  and  from  abroad,  who 
had  been  violently  deprived  of  the  opportunity  to 
deepen  their  knowledge  of  the  Eussian  masses  and 
who,  therefore,  for  the  most  part  continued  to  re- 
volve within  their  early  formulas,  poured  into 
Eussia  and,  loving  their  countrymen,  at  once  set  to 
work  to  teach  them  what  to  demand  and  how  to 
back  up  their  demands  „  That  is  why  we  are  con- 
fronted with  the  amazing  spectacle  of  a  people 


RETURNING  REVOLUTIONISTS      195 

half-literate,  inexperienced,  six  sevenths  agricul- 
tural, trying  to  introduce  Marxian  socialism,  which 
is  the  outgrowth  of  industrial  capitalism  and  ma- 
chine industry !  Cjryv**^  ^ 


CHAPTER  X 

REVOLUTIONARY  MOVEMENTS  AND 
PARTIES 

OFTEN  the  question  is  asked,  "Why^has  the 
Russian  bourgeoise  proved  so  impotent 
politically?7'  The  answer  is  supplied  by  the  role 
of  this  class  under  old  regime.  In  autocratic  Rus- 
sia good  things  were  obtained  by  "pull."  The 
Government  was  free  with  bounties  for  capitalists, 
and  they  were  won  not  by  vote-getting,  but  by 
lobbying.  The  "man  of  affairs"  had  only  to  ac- 
quire a  friend  in  the  ministry  of  finance  and  he 
could  be  certain  that  his  application  to  start  a 
joint-stock  company  would  not  be  pigeon-holed. 
When  the  sugar  manufacturers  found  themselves 
"in  a  hole,"  owing  to  destructive  competition,  they 
discovered  a  friend  in  Witte,  minister  of  finance, 
who  fixed  the  price  of  sugar  and  insured  them  un- 
heard-of dividends.  Thus  the  capitalists  had  about 
as  much  of  a  chance  to  develop  the  art  of  making 
a  vote-winning  appeal  as  our  railway  presidents. 
Neither  had  they  developed  a  class  of  camouflage 
politicians  to  do  their  bidding.  This  is  why,  as 
soon  as  Russia  become  a  democracy  and  govern- 
ment a  matter  of  getting  votes,  the  "captains  of 
industry"  were  as  helpless  as  fish  on  dry  land. 
The  abstention  of  the  men  of  affairs  left  poli- 

196 


REVOLUTIONARY  MOVEMENTS     197 

tics  the  stamping-ground  of  the  intellectuals. 
Politics  became  a  consecrated  occupation,  and  po- 
litical programs  reflected  ideas  rather  than  class 
interests.  Hence  arose  persistent  movements 
which  rested  upon  a  theory  or  originated  in  a 
book. 

The  community,  or  obshchina,  is  an  association 
of  families  living  in  the  same  village  for  the  collec- 
tive ownership  of  land.  It  was  not  until  the 
forties  of  the  last  century  that  the  rising  class  of 
Russian  intelligentsia,  then  deeply  under  the  influ- 
ence of  French  socialistic  writers,  had  their  atten- 
tion called  to  this  institution  by  a  German  traveler 
in  Russia,  Haxthausen.  They  fell  upon  it  with 
joy  as  the  antidote  for  the  individualism  which 
had  elsewhere  torn  society  into  classes.  Here  was 
something  unique  which  held  the  promise  of  solv- 
ing the  social  question.  Despised  Russia  ap- 
peared to  have  possessed  for  centuries  the  com- 
munistic social  order  toward  which  the  rest  of  the 
world  holds  out  its  hands. 

In  governing  circles  this  "find"  encouraged  the 
"Slavophil"  attitude  which  deprecated  borrowing 
from  "Western  Europe  and  cried  up  everything 
Russian — autocracy,  orthodoxy,  the  commune. 
But  other  intellectuals  who  cared  for  the  suffer- 
ing masses  developed  into  narodniki,  or  people- 
ists.  Of  these,  the  outstanding  genius  was 
Tchernishevsky.  To  him,  communism  in  land  was 
but  a  foundation  on  which  to  build  a  complete  so- 
cialism. In  each  Russian  commune  he  beheld  the 
nucleus  of  a  future  Fourierist  phalanx,  a  minia- 


198  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

ture  cooperative  commonwealth  to  be  united  by  a 
federal  bond  with  109,000  other  like  common- 
wealths. 

Beginning  with  the  sixties,  the  preservation  of 
the  commune  became  the  ruling  passion  of  most 
of  the  social-minded  intelligentsia.  Economists, 
writers,  and  poets  joined  in  extolling  the  com- 
mune. Eussia,  they  chorused,  is  the  only  country 
that  has  been  spared  by  history  the  ravages  of 
capitalism.  It  is  her  destiny  to  evolve  from  vil- 
lage communism  into  full  socialism  without  pass- 
ing through  the  cruel  experience  of  individualism. 

So  long  as  the  sole  enemies  of  the  commune  were 
the  liberals,  who  would  have  Eussia  become  a  lib- 
eral-bourgeois society,  the  people-ists  held  in  line 
the  social-minded  intelligentsia.  But  presently  a 
deadly  enemy  arose  in  a  new  quarter.  About  the 
middle  of  the  eighties  some  of  the  political  exiles 
introduced  educated  Eussians  to  Marxian  social- 
ism, and  it  was  like  letting  in  a  stream  of  fresh 
air.  The  people-ists  had  pointed  out  the  way  they 
wanted  society  to  go ;  the  Marxians  pointed  out  the 
way,  heedless  of  human  wishes,  it  had  to  go.  The 
economist,  Peter  Struve,  now  anti-Marxian  and 
Kadet,  coined  the  epigram,  "The  moujik  must  be 
cooked  in  the  factory  boiler  before  he  will  be  ready 
to  enter  the  socialist  state  as  a  full-fledged  mem- 
ber." In  other  words,  Eussia  must  pass  through 
a  stage  of  capitalism,  the  commune  must  be  broken 
up,  and  the  peasant  must  become  a  proletarian 
before  Eussia  can  attain  socialism.  Through  the 
nineties  a  battle  raged  between  people-ists  and 


REVOLUTIONARY  MOVEMENTS     199 

Marxians,  and  the  latter  won  in  the  magazines  and 
scientific  journals.  By  1897  it  took  courage  to 
declare  yourself  a  people-ist. 

But  the  people-ists,  though  defeated  in  scientific 
discussion,  lived  in  the  affections  of  the  people  and 
many  of  the  intelligentsia.  They  were  the  inspir- 
ers  of  the  Social-Revolutionary  Party,  organized 
in  1901,  which  made  its  debut  by  putting  an  end 
to  the  ferocious  minister  of  the  interior,  Sipiagin. 
It  is  the  party  of  Tchernoff,  Breshkovskaya,  Spir- 
idonova,  and  Kerensky.  The  agrarian  disorders 
in  South  Russia  in  1903  put  them  again  on  the 
map,  for  it  showed  that  they  could  call  forth  mass 
action  on  the  part  of  the  peasants,  whereas  the 
people-ist  revolutionaries  of  a  quarter  of  a  cenT 
tury  earlier  had  been  but  a  group  of  heroic  con- 
spirators, deft  in  the  use  of  dynamite  bombs,  but 
quite  out  of  touch  with  the  moujik  in  sheepskin 
and  birchbark  shoes.  The  new  Social-Revolution- 
ary Party,  the  party  of  Gershuni  and  the  sinister 
Azeff,  while  still  relying  on  the  bomb,  had  a  mass 
movement  behind  it.  Economists  and  Marxians 
might  condemn  the  commune,  but  the  peasants 
were  heartily  for  it  and  lent  ear  to  the  appeals  of 
the  narodnik  socialists. 

The  Marxians  held  their  first  national  congress 
secretly  at  Minsk  in  1898,  and  organized  the  So- 
cial-Democratic Party.  Its  headquarters  were  in 
Switzerland,  and,  as  is  usually  the  case  with  refu- 
gees unable  to  act  upon  the  life  about  them,  they 
split  on  differences  of  opinion  about  non-essen- 
tials.   Their  1903  congress  in  Switzerland  broke 


200  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

into  Bolsheviki  (majoritaires)  and  Mensheviki 
(minoritaires)  on  questions  of  tactics  to  be  pur- 
sued. Later,  "Menshevik"  meant  one  who  wants 
the  laboring  class  to  be  a  powerful  element  in  a 
bourgeois  state,  while  "Bolshevik"  was  one  who 
aspired  to  a  state  in  which  the  bourgeoisie  shall 
have  no  share. 

During  this  period  the  liberals  were  quietly 
reaching  a  degree  of  coordinated  action  through 
their  control  of  the  semstvos,  or  local  government 
bodies.  They  developed  into  the  Party  of  Popu- 
lar Liberty,  formerly  known  as  Constitutional 
Democrats  and  nicknamed  form  the  initial  let- 
ters "Kadets.."  They  stood  for  freedom  of 
speech,  of  assemblage,  and  of  the  press,  and  for 
popular  elective  institutions  and  social  reform, 
but  they  believed  thoroughly  in  private  property 
in  the  means  of  production. 

The  revolution  of  1905-06  was  a  tragic  rehearsal 
of  the  great  revolution  of  to-day.  Successful  in 
October,  1905,  after  a  general  strike,  it  was 
wrecked  upon  the  rocks  of  disunion  between  lib- 
eral and  socialist,  the  coup  de  grace  being  given 
by  the  foreign  bankers  who  loaned  the  Russian 
autocracy  600  million  rubles  on  the  eve  of  the 
gathering  of  the  first  Duma. 'The  fruitage  of  this 
abortive  revolution  was  an  impotent  parliament, 
one  hundred  thousand  revolutionary  exiles  in  Si- 
beria, not  counting  the  fifteen  thousand  who  were 
executed,  and  a  new  theory  of  revolutionary  gov- 
ernment developed  by  Lenin e — the  "dictatorship 
of  the  proletariat  and  peasantry."   T 


Entrance  to  Shakh — Zinda,  Samarcand 


"    Si 


■Us. 


4 

4 

▲        ^ 

HRRHHHHHHHl 

t 

REVOLUTIONARY  MOVEMENTS     203 

With  the  fall  of  the  tsar,  the  Kadets  came  into 
power,  for,  being  a  tolerated  party,  they  were 
organized  and  on  the  spot,  while  the  leaders  of  the 
more  radical  groups  were  in  prison  or  in  exile. 
The  Kadets  thought  of  the  revolution  as  a  be- 
stower  of  liberties.  They  spoke  for  the  comfort- 
ably-off  class  whose  chief  grievance  against  the 
old  regime  was  that  it  stifled  liberty  of  thought 
and  speech,  agitation  and  organization.  But  the 
common  people  thought  of  the  revolution  as  a 
bringer  of  economic  relief.  To  the  peasants  it 
meant  more  land,  to  the  wage-earners  more  wages. 
The  Kadets  agreed  that  the  old  regime  was  in- 
iquitous, but  failed  to  draw  the  obvious  conclu- 
sion that  the  distribution  of  wealth  that  grew  up 
under  it  must  partake  of  its  character  and  must 
be  iniquitous,  too!  When  the  banished  revolu- 
tionists got  back  to  Russia  and  went  to  stirring 
up  and  organizing  the  peasants  and  workingmen, 
it  was  inevitable  that  in  a  country  with  wealth  in 
so  few  hands  the  question  as  to  the  control  of 
land  and  capital,  the  indispensable  means  of  pro- 
duction, should  swallow  up  every  other. 

When  I  was  in  Moscow  in  August,  everybody  I 
talked  with  agreed  that  the  revolution  had  gone 
"a  little  too  far,"  and  that  there  was  a  shift  of 
opinion  in  the  direction  of  the  political  Right.  I 
took  this  as  gospel  until  I  got  out  among  the  peas- 
ants and  found  radical  programs  marching 
steadily  ahead,  while  Kadet  scruples  and  warn- 
ings were  laughed  at.  I  saw  that  a  bigger  revo- 
lution was  yet  to.  come. 


204  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

When,  on  the  morrow  of  the  March  revolution, 
Councils  of  Workmen's  and  Soldiers'  deputies 
spread  from  Petrograd  to  all  the  centers  in  Eus- 
sia,  the  Menshevik  parliamentarians  were  natur- 
ally their  leaders.  They  were  right  on  the  ground, 
while  the  Bolsheviki  were  all  over  the  globe. 
Then,  too,  they  had  been  in  the  Duma,  and  thus 
could  mediate  between  the  Duma-created  Pro- 
visional Government  and  the  surging  masses  of 
workingmen.  Their  original  revolutionism  hav- 
ing been  toned  down  by  experience  and  many  dis- 
appointments, men  like  Tcheidze  and  Skobelef 
formed  a  link  between  the  middle  class  and  the 
lower  classes.  They  could  be  counted  on  to  sit 
tight  on  the  lid  of  the  boiling  pot.  They  believed 
in  their  hearts  that  the  masses  were  too  "dark" 
and  inexperienced  to  be  trusted  with  power.  They 
considered  the  Sovyets  for  which  they  spoke  not 
as  a  rival  of  the  Provisional  Government,  but  as 
a  watch-dog  of  the  revolution  until  the  Constitu- 
tional Assembly  convened  and  took  all  power  to  it- 
self. 

The  Bolsheviki,  on  the  other  hand,  saw  in  the 
Sovyet  organization  a  means  of  realizing  govern- 
ment by  the  people.  When  we  talk  of  "the  rule 
of  the  people,"  we  mean  all  the  people,  captains 
of  industry  as  well  as  laborers.  Our  sole  stipu- 
lation is  that  the  former's  vote  shall  not  count  for 
more  than  the  latter 's.  But  to  the  Bolshevik, 
"people"  means  something  that  would  at  once 
lose  its  purity  if  the  "bourgeode" — Eussian  slang 
corruption  of  "bourgeois" — were  a  part  of  it. 


KEVOLUTIONARY  MOVEMENTS     205 

He  divides  society  into  the  "people,"  who  wear 
soft  shirts,  and  the  "bourgeode,"  who  wear  white 
collars.  Not  long  ago  Petrograd  laundry-workers 
refused  to  starch  linen  collars  because  they  are 
"bourgeode"  insignia. 

Our  democracy  is  built  on  representation  by 
areas.  The  Bolshevik  is  suspicious  of  this  amor- 
phous structure,  for  has  he  not  seen  it  lend  itself 
to  plutocracy  in  Western  Europe  and  America? 
No,  let  the  people  group  themselves  by  occupation 
when  they  choose  their  representative,  and  then 
he  will  really  stand  for  something.  As  for  those 
of  no  occupation,  who  do  not  work  for  their  liv- 
ing, why  should  they  be  let  in  to  obfuscate  or  cor- 
rupt this  green  democracy?  Why  should  the 
" people,"  once  they  have  all  power,  tolerate  in 
their  councils  the  disturbing  presence  of  irrecon- 
cilable enemies  whom  they  intend  to  subject  to 
the  awful  fate  of  having  to  go  to  work?  There 
have  been  many  states  run  by  property-holders 
to  the  utter  exclusion  of  toilers,  but  the  present 
Sovyet  state  is  the  first  in  the  world's  history  to 
be  run  by  toilers  to  the  utter  exclusion  of  property- 
holders. 

Not  alone  the  propaganda  of  returned  radicals 
brought  the  Russian  workmen  and  soldiers  to  the 
cry,  "All  power  to  the  Sovyets!"  but  also  the 
failure  of  the  Kerensky  ministers  to  give  the 
masses  what  they  wanted.  Even  an  all-socialist 
ministry  did  not  turn  over  the  estates  to  the  peas- 
ants or  stand  up  for  the  factory  committees.  J 
Then,  too,  the  Constitutional  Assembly,  which  was 


206  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

to  be  the  final  arbiter  between  classes,  was  post- 
poned and  again  postponed.  The  Kornilof  up- 
rising in  September  caused  popular  sentiment 
to  veer  sharply  to  the  left.  Kerensky  and  his 
group  still  failed  to  stem  the  rising  tide  by  an  im- 
mediate  summoning   of   the    Constitutional   As- 

^  sembly.  There  were  no  signs  of  peace.  The  Al- 
lies remained  deaf  to  Kerensky 's  plea  for  a  re- 
vision of  their  war  aims.  Internal  reforms,  such 
as  land  and  labor,  were  shelved  till  the  Constitu- 
tional Assembly  should  act,  and  no  one  expected 
it  to  spend  less  than  two  years  on  them.  (So  in 
November  the  lid  blew  off  the  seething  caldron 
of  discontent,  the  Kerensky  Government  fell,  and 
the  Sovyet  Eepublic  arose.    This  revolution  over- 

1    I  shadows  that  of  last  March  because  it  is  social, 
I  not  merely  political.      ] 

Among  the  first  acts^of  the  Bolsheviki  in  power 
was  to  square  their  debt  to  the  left  wing  of  the 
Social  Revolutionists,  their  ally  in  the  coup  d  'etat. 
The  latter  would  accept  only  one  kind  of  currency 
— the  expropriation  of  the  private  landowners 
without  compensation  and  the  transfer  of  all  the 
land  into  the  hands  of  the  peasant  communes. 
The  Bolsheviki  themselves,  as  good  Marxians, 
took  no  stock  in  the  peasants  [  commune.  As  such, 
pending  the  introduction  of  socialism,  they  should, 
perhaps,  have  nationalized  the  land  and  rented  it 
to  the  highest  bidder,  regardless  of  whether  it 
was  to  be  tilled  in  small  parcels  without  hired  la- 
bor or  in  large  blocks  on  the  capitalistic  plan. 
The  land  edict  of  November  does,  indeed,  decree 


REVOLUTIONARY  MOVEMENTS     207 

land  nationalization;  however,  the  vital  proviso 
is  added  that  ' '  the  use  of  the  land  must  be  equal- 
ized— that  is,  the  land  must  be  divided  among  the 
people  according  to  local  conditions  and  accord- 
ing to  the  ability  to  work  and  the  needs  of  each  in- 
dividual," and  further,  that  "the  hiring  of  labor 
is  not  permitted."  The  administrative  machin- 
ery is  thus  described:  "All  the  confiscated  land 
becomes  the  land  capital  of  the  nation.  Its  distri- 
bution among  the  working  people  is  to  be  in  charge 
of  the  local  and  central  authorities,  beginning  with 
the  organized  rural  and  urban  communities  and 
ending  with  the  provincial  central  organs. ' '  Such 
is  the  irony  of  fate.  Those  who  had  charged  the 
rural  land  commune  with  being  the  most  serious 
brake  upon  Russia's  progress,  and  who  had  stig- 
matized the  people-ists  as  reactionaries  and 
Utopians,  now  came  to  enact  into  law  most  of  their 
tenets — the  equalization  of  the  use  of  land,  the 
prohibition  of  the  hiring  of  labor,  and  everything 
else! 

Although  their  land  policy  is,  first  of  all,  a 
means  of  gaining  and  holding  political  allies,  the 
industrial  program  of  the  Bolsheviki  expresses 
their  dearest  social  aims.  What  constitutes  this 
program  I  was  able  to  learn  from  high  authority. 
It  was  on  a  brief  December  day,  but  a  little  more 
than  a  month  after  the  Bolshevist  revolution,  that 
I  ran  the  gauntlet  of  the  soldiers  that  guard  the 
long  corridors  of  Smolni  Institute  and  was  ush- 
ered into  the  presence  of  Leon  Trotsky,  ne  Bron- 
stein,  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  for  the  Bolsh- 


208  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

eviki  and  right  hand  man  of  Lenine,  ne  Oulianoff, 
the  economist  and  strategist  of  Kussian  Social- 
ism. I  found  a  square-shouldered  man  of  medium 
height  whose  advertisement  of  intellect  in  his 
broad,  wall-like  forehead  was  balanced  by  a  firm, 
square  chin  announcing  will. 

After  telling  him  I  was  interested  in  his  econo- 
mic program,  rather  than  his  peace  program,  I 
asked:  "Is  it  the  intention  of  your  party  to  dis- 
possess the  owners  of  industrial  plants  in  Rus- 
sia?" 

"No,"  he  replied.  "We  are  not  ready  yet  to 
take  over  all  industry.  That  will  come  in  time, 
but  no  one  can  say  how  soon.  For  the  present, 
we  expect  out  of  the  earnings  of  a  factory  to  pay 
the  owner  five  or  six  per  cent,  yearly  on  his  actual 
investment.  What  we  aim  at  now  is  control, 
rather  than  ownership." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  'control'?" 

"I  mean  that  we  will  see  to  it  that  the  factory 
is  run  not  from  the  point  of  view  of  private  profit, 
but  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  social  welfare 
democratically  conceived.  For  example,  we  will 
not  allow  the  capitalist  to  shut  up  his  factory  in 
order  to  starve  his  workmen  into  submissiveness 
or  because  it  is  not  yielding  him  a  profit.  If  it  is 
turning  out  economically  a  needed  product,  it  must 
be  kept  running.  If  the  capitalist  abandons  it, 
he  will  lose  it  altogether,  for  a  board  of  directors 
chosen  by  the  workmen  will  be  put  in  charge. 

"Again,  'control'  implies  that  the  books  and 
correspondence  of  the  concern  will  be  open  to  the 


REVOLUTIONARY  MOVEMENTS     209 

public,  so  that  henceforth  there  will  be  no  indus- 
trial secrets.  If  this  concern  hits  upon  a  better 
process  or  device,  it  will  be  communicated  to  all 
other  concerns  in  the  same  branch,  of  industry,  so 
that  the  public  will  promptly  realize  the  utmost 
possible  benefit  from  the  find.  At  present  it  is 
hidden  away  from  other  concerns  at  the  dictate 
of  the  profit-seeking  motive,  and  for  years  the 
.  article  may  be  kept  needlessly  scarce  and  dear  to 
the  consuming  public. 

"  *  Control'  also  means  that  primary  requisites 
limited  in  quantity,  such  as  coal,  oil,  iron,  steel, 
etc.,  will  be  allotted  to  the  different  plants  calling 
rfor  them  with  an  eye  to  their  social  utility.  On 
a  limited  stock  of  materials  of  production,  con- 
cerns that  produce  luxuries  should  have  a  slighter  v 
claim  than  those  which  produce  necessaries. 

"Don't  misunderstand  me,"  he  added;  "we  are 
not  ascetics.  Luxuries  shall  be  produced,  too, 
when  there  is  enough  of  fuel  and  materials  for  all 
the  factories." 

"On  what  basis  will  you  apportion  a  limited  sup- 
ply of  the  means  of  production  among  the  claim- 
ant industries!" 

"Not  as  now,  according  to  the  bidding  of  cap- 
italists against  one  another,  but  on  the  basis  of 
full  and  carefully  gathered  statistics." 

"Will  the  workmen's  committee  or  the  elected 
managers  of  a  factory  be  free  to  run  it  according 
to  their  own  lights!" 

"No,  they  will  be  subject  to  policies  laid  down 
by  the  local  sovyet  of  workmen's  deputies." 


210  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

"Will  this  sovyet  be  at  liberty  to  adopt  such 
policies  as  it  pleases?'* 

"No,  their  range  of  discretion  will  be  limited  in 
turn  by  regulations  made  for  each  class  of  industry 
by  the  boards  or  bureaus  of  the  central  govern- 
ment." 

"In  a  conversation  last  week  with  Prince  Kro- 
potkin,"  I  said,  "he  urged  that  each  center  be 
autonomous  with  respect  to  the  industries  carried 
on  within  it.  Let  the  city  of  Moscow,  for  ex- 
ample, be  owner  and  mistress  of  all  the  mills  in 
and  around  that  city.  What  do  you  think  of 
it?" 

"Kropotkin's  communalism, "  replied  Trotzky, 
leaning  forward  a  little  in  his  earnestness,  "would 
work  in  a  simple  society  based  on  agriculture  and 
household  industries,  but  it  isn't  at  all  suited  to 
the  state  of  things  in  modern  industrial  society. 
The  coal  from  the  Donetz  basin  goes  all  over 
Russia  and  is  indispensable  in  all  sorts  of  indus- 
tries. Now,  don't  you  see  that  if  the  organized 
people  of  that  district  could  do  just  as  they  pleased 
with  the  coal  mines,  they  could  hold  up  all  the  rest 
of  Russia  if  they  chose  ?  In  the  same  way  the 
people  of  Baku  through  their  control  of  the  oil 
wells  and  refineries  would  be  able  to  levy  tribute 
on  all  the  traffic  plying  on  the  Volga.  Entire  in- 
dependence of  each  locality  respecting  its  in- 
dustries would  result  in  endless  friction  and 
difficulties  in  a  society  that  has  reached  the  stage 
of  local  specialization  of  industry.  It  might  even 
bring  on  civil  war.    Kropotkin  has  in  mind  the 


REVOLUTIONARY  MOVEMENTS     211 

Russia  of  sixty  years  ago,  the  Russia  of  his 
youth." 

"Then  you  are  centralist  rather  than  federal- 
ist!" 

"Not  at  all,"  he  answered  quickly.  "On 
economic  matters  the  degree '  .of  centralization 
should  -correspond  with  the  actual  stage  of  devel- 
opment of  industrial  organization.  But  unitary 
regulation  of  production  is  very  different  from  the 
centralization  that  characterized  the  old  regime. 
There  is  no  call  for  the  steam-roller  to  crush  the 
different  nationalities  among  us  into  conformity 
of  speech,  religion,  education,  etc." 

"What  should  be  done  to  meet  the  wishes  of  the 
diverse  nationalties  in  Russia — Finns,  Letts,  Lith- 
uanians, Little  Russians,  Georgians,  Armenians, 
and  Tatars?" 

"The  only  solution  is  a  Federal  Union  such  as 
you  have  in  the  United  States.  Let  each  of  the 
states  of  future  Russia  be  free  to  do  as  it  will  in 
respect  to  language,  schools,  religion,  courts,  laws, 
penal  systems,  etc." 

"Do  you  propose  that  the  profits  earned  by  a 
concern  shall  be  divided  among  its  workers!" 

"No;  profit-sharing  is  a  bourgeois  notion.  The 
workers  in  a  mill  will  be  paid  adequate  wages. 
All  the  profits  not  paid  to  the  owners  will  belong  to 
society." 

"To  the  local  community,  or  to  the  central  gov- 
ernment?" 

"They  will  be  shared  between  the  two,  according 
to  their  comparative  needs." 


212  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

"What  will  be  shared — everything  above  run- 
ning expenses?  Or  will  you  set  aside  something 
for  depreciation,  so  that  when  the  plant  is  worn 
out  there  will  be  money  enough  to  replace  it  ? " 

"Oh,  of  course,  it  is  only  pure  profit  that  will  be 
divided." 

"By  sticking  to  this  principle  you  can  keep  up 
the  existing  industrial  outfit.  But  in  some 
branches — say,  the  making  of  motorcycles  or 
tractors — new  factories  are  called  for  to  supply 
the  expanding  needs  of  the  public.  Where  will 
the  money  come  from  that  will  build  these  new 
factories  ?" 

"We  can  impose  on  the  capitalist  to  whom  we 
allow  a  dividend  of  five  or  six  per  cent,  on  his 
capital  the  obligation  to  reinvest  in  some  industry 
a  part — say,  twenty-five  per  cent. — of  what  he  re- 
ceives." 

"If  in  Eussia  you  hold  the  capitalists  down  to 
five  or  six  per  cent.,  while  in  other  countries  they 
can  hope  for  twice  or  thrice  as  much  return,  won 't 
Eussia  be  stripped  of  capital?" 

1 '  They  won 't  be  allowed  to  remove  their  capital 
from  Eussia  at  will,"  said  Trotzky  significantly. 

"Besides,"  he  went  on,  "do  you  imagine  that 
capitalist  control  is  going  to  survive  everywhere, 
save  in  Eussia?  In  all  the  European  belligerent 
countries  I  expect  to  see  social  revolution  after 
the  war.  So  long  as  they  remain  in  the  trenches 
the  soldiers  think  of  little  but  their  immediate 
problem — to  kill  your  opponent  before  he  kills 
you.    But  when  they  go  home  and  find  their  family 


REVOLUTIONARY  MOVEMENTS     213 

scattered,  perhaps  their  home  desolate,  their  in- 
dustry ruined,  and  their  taxes  five  times  as  high 
as  before,  they  will  begin  to  consider  how  this  ap- 
palling calamity  was  brought  upon  them.  They 
will  be  open  to  the  demonstration  that  the  scramble 
of  capitalists  and  groups  of  capitalists  for  foreign 
markets  and  exploitable  'colonial'  areas,  imper- 
ialism, secret  diplomacy,  and  armament  rivalry 
promoted  by  munition  makers,  brought  on  the  war. 
Once  they  perceive  that  the  capitalist  class  is  re- 
sponsible for  this  terrible  disaster  to  humanity, 
they  will  arise  and  wrest  the  control  from  its 
hands.  To  be  sure,  a  proletarian  Russia  cannot 
get  very  far  in  realizing  its  aims,  if  all  the  rest 
of  the  world  remains  under  the  capitalist  regime. 
But  that  will  not  happen.' ' 

"Everywhere  in  Russia  I  go  I  find  a  slump  of 
forty  or  fifty  per  cent,  in  the  productivity  of  the 
workmen  in  the  factories.  Is  there  not  danger 
of  an  insufficiency  of  manufactured  goods,  if  the 
workmen  of  each  factory  follow  pretty  much  their 
own  gait?" 

"The  current  low  productivity  is  a  natural  re- 
action from  the  labor-driving  characteristic  of  the 
old  regime.  In  time  that  will  be  overcome  by 
standards  of  efficiency  being  adopted  by  each  craft 
union  and  by  the  denial  of  the  advantages  of  mem- 
bership to  such  workmen  as  will  not,  or  cannot, 
come  up  to  these  standards.  Besides  collectivist 
production  will  make  great  use  of  the  Taylor  sys- 
tem of  scientific  management.  It  has  not  been 
popular  among  the  proletariat  because,  as  now 


214  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

applied,  it  chiefly  swells  the  profits  of  the  capital- 
ist, with  little  benefit  to  the  working  man  or  the 
consuming  public.  "When  all  the  economy  of  ef- 
fort it  achieves  accrues  to  society  as  a  whole,  it 
will  be  cheerfully  and  generally  adopted,  and 
premature  labor,  prolonged  labor,  and  overwork 
will  be  abandoned,  because  needless." 

Such  are  the  ideas  of  the  leader.  I  submitted 
them  to  various  Russian  economists,  and  all 
agreed  that  the  Russian  workmen  are  too  ignorant 
and  short-sighted  to  submit  themeselves  to  the 
sound  economic  principles  which  may  be  held  by 
their  leaders.  Conscious  of  being  masters  of  the 
industrial  properties,  they  will  not  submit  them- 
selves to  indispensable  discipline,  they  will  not 
follow  the  counsel  of  technical  men  and  they  will 
"eat  up  the  capital,"  so  that  before  the  factories 
have  been  long  in  their  hands  it  will  be  impossible 
to  keep  them  going. 


CHAPTER  XI 
CASTE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

TO  the  eye,  the  ends  of  the  Russian  social  scale 
are  wide  apart.  When  I  go  about  in  Mos- 
cow or  Rostof  I  see  so  many  well-shod  and  well- 
groomed  people,  despite  the  prohibitive  cost  of 
clothing,  such  quantities  of  beautiful  furs,  kara- 
kul caps,  and  broad  karakul  overcoat-collars; 
there  is  such  a  whir  of  automobiles  and  such  a  free 
use  of  cabs;  calling  on  a  university  professor,  I 
am  ushered  into  such  noble,  high-ceiled,  hand- 
somely furnished  rooms,  of  a  type  rare  in  the 
abode  of  an  American  scholar,  that  I  exclaim, 
""What  a  rich  country  this  is!" 

But  when  I  go  about  in  the  rural  village  and 
mark  the  coarse  garments  everyone  wears,  the  tiny 
house-lot,  the  insignificant  outbuildings,  the  preva- 
lence of  the  one-room  or  two-room  izba,  the  ab- 
sence of  pleasure  vehicles  and  pleasure  horses,  the 
lack,  even  in  villages  of  several  thousand  souls, 
,of  any  place  of  public  amusement,  such  as  bowling- 
alley,  billiard-room,  sweets-shop,  or  ball-ground; 
when,  in  the  peasant  hut,  I  miss  floor,  floor-cover- 
ing, furniture,  pictures,  curtains,  everything  that 
goes  to  make  a  home,  I  exclaim,  "What  a  poor 
country  this  is!" 

In  railway-trains,  waiting-rooms,  and  steam- 
boats the  contrast  in  dress,  cleanliness,  manners, 

215 


216  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

and  accommodations  between  different  classes  of 
passengers  is  much  greater  than  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  see.  Outside  of  the  great  cities  different 
grades  of  accommodations  are  provided,  even  in 
the  street-cars,  one  being  for  the  "clean  public" 
and  the  other  for  the  ' '  black  people. ' '  In  railway- 
stations  the  third-class  passengers  are  kept  by 
themselves  in  a  big,  barn-like  waiting  room  pro- 
vided with  a  buffet  selling  coarse,  cheap  food,  a 
boiler  of  hot  water,  and  a  few  seats.  The  wide, 
littered  floor-space  is  filled  with  poor  people  mak- 
ing tea,  eating,  or  sleeping  amid  their  bundles. 

The  riches  one  notes  in  churches,  monasteries, 
palaces,  and  pleasure-cities  like  Moscow  and  Pet- 
rograd  signify  not  that  Russia  is  a  rich  country, 
but  that  there  is  a  vast  area  to  draw  from  and  that 
the  system  for  concentrating  wealth  is  wonder- 
fully efficacious.  When  a  few  years  ago,  I  studied 
the  industrial  life  of  Pittsburgh  and  perceived  how 
the  regime  of  the  mills,  the  policy  of  the  steel  com- 
panies, the  operations  of  the  city  government,  the 
newspapers,  the  churches,  the  philanthropies,  and 
the  laws  of  Pennsylvania  worked  together  to  cause 
the  greatest  possible  portion  of  the  wealth  pro- 
duced to  flow  away  to  distant  capitalists  and  the 
least  possible  share  to  be  left  to  those  who  labor  in 
the  smoke-filled  river-valley  to  produce  it,  I  mar- 
velled at  the  efficiency  of  the  system.  In  Russia 
one  has  the  same  sense  of  being  in  the  presence  of 
a  social  system  that  embodies  great  foresight  and 
contrivance.  The  autocracy,  the  bureaucracy,  the 
captive  Church,  the  "safe"  teaching,  the  class  dis- 


CASTE  AND  DEMOCRACY  217 

tinctions  in  the  law  code,  the  tax  system,  the  tariff 
duties,  the  censor,  the  police,  the  spies,  the  Cos- 
sacks, and  the  exile  system — all  were  "  parts  of 
one  stupendous  whole"  devised  to  concentrate  as 
much  as  possible  of  the  good  things  of  life  at  the 
thin  apex  of  the  social  cone  and  to  roll  as  much  as 
possible  of  the  burdens  upon  its  broad  base.  The 
system,  rather  than  natural  differences  in  ability 
or  character,  is  the  key  to  Russia 's  extreme  social 
contrasts. 

The  officers  in  the  army  were  all  drawn  from  the 
privileged  class.  Were  it  not  that  the  great  loss 
of  officers  in  the  war  obliged  the  Government  to 
commission  multitudes  of  young  men  from  a  lower 
and  less  reliable  social  class,  Nicholas  might  still 
be  tsar.  The  darkness  of  the  masses  was  cher- 
ished as  the  brightest  jewel  in  the  Romanof 
crown.  The  unauthorized  communication  of 
knowledge  was  prohibited.  The  Government  lit 
no  lamps  for  the  people,  nor  would  it  let  others  do 
so  freely.  The  public  elementary  schools  the 
zemstvos  planted  were  not  allowed  to  prepare  pu- 
pils to  enter  the  gymnasia.  Because  the  gymna- 
sia were  the  sole  gangways  to  modern  business, 
the  professions,  and  the  higher  service  of  the  state, 
they  were  reserved  for  children  whose  parents 
could  afford  to  pay  for  their  elementary  education. 

The  noble  estates  to  which  the  Bolsheviki  have 
administered,  no  doubt,  the  finishing  stroke  be- 
came pure  private  property,  owing  to  Romanof 
tenderness  for  the  upper  class.  Originally 
granted  on  condition  of  definite  military  service, 


218  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

the  estate  passed  to  widow  or  heir  only  with  the 
tsar's  consent.  The  state  was  to  get  a  quid  for 
its  quo.  But  about  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century  Emperor  Peter  III,  the  ill-fated  husband 
of  Catherine  II,  released  the  nobles  from  their  ob- 
ligation to  render  special  service.  Thencefor- 
ward the  estate  was  handed  down  to  the  heirs  as 
a  matter  of  course,  and  what  had  been  an  order 
of  hereditary,  endowed,  public  servants  became  a 
parasitic  class.  The  trick  was  just  the  same  as 
that  whereby  the  fiefs  of  western  Europe  became 
private  property  by  sponging  off  the  feudal  obli- 
gations for  which  they  had  been  created. 

Serfdom  was  established  in  Russia  to  aid  these 
endowed  public  servants  to  fulfill  the  duties  re- 
quired of  them.  The  original  purpose  of  tying 
the  peasant  to  the  glebe  was  to  guarantee  the  mili- 
tary ability  of  the  nobles  by  giving  them  control 
over  the  population  on  their  estates.  The  state 
obliged  the  landholder  to  produce  one  mounted 
man,  with  horse,  sword,  gun,  and  food,  for  every 
four  hundred  and  fifty  acres  of  land  he  held.  If, 
for  example,  a  boydr  held  4500  acres  from  the  tsar, 
he  must  offer  nine  others  besides  himself.  Serf- 
dom was  a  means  of  guaranteeing  that  the  noble 
should  actually  be  on  hand  at  the  appointed  time 
with  the  required  number  of  troopers. 

In  the  northern  provinces  serfdom  never  devel- 
oped extensively,  and  hence  the  character  of  the 
peasants  is  more  independent  there.  The  fullest 
development  of  serfdom  was  in  the  provinces  fac- 
ing the  enemy — east  toward  the  Tatars,  south  to- 


CASTE  AND  DEMOCRACY  219 

ward  the  Tatars  and  Turks,  west  toward  the  Poles. 
Under  no  other  conditions,  perhaps,  could  trusty 
and  capable  men  have  been  induced  to  assume  the 
dangerous  duties  of  frontier-warden,  margrave  or 
' '  count  of  the  marches. ' '  In  front  of  the  frontier 
of  permanent  settlement  was  a  belt  of  free  men, 
the  Kazdki,  or  " Cossacks." 

The  first  step  toward  tying  down  the  peasants 
was  taken  in  1597,  just  before  the  founding  of  col- 
onies in  America  opened  up  a  great  prospect  of 
freedom  for  the  English  race,  and  by  the  middle  of 
the  next  century  the  transition  to  serfdom  was 
complete.  From  the  throning  of  the  first  Roman- 
of  in  1613,  it  appeared  that  the  peasants  had  no 
importance  at  all  in  the  eyes  of  the  Government. 
Like  other  European  monarchs  of  their  time,  the 
Ivans  of  the  Ruric  dynasty  had  sided  with  the  peo- 
ple against  the  dukes  or  local  magnates.  But  by 
the  time  the  Romanofs  came  upon  the  scene  the 
Russian  nobles  had  become  a  conscious  social 
class,  rather  than  isolated  local  men,  and  the  tsars 
conspired  with  them  to  reduce  the  people  to 
pawns.  The  first  Romanof  was  a  creature  of  the 
gentry,  and  without  them  he  could  not  have  lasted 
a  week. 

About  the  time  that  John  Milton  was  setting  pen 
to  his  "Paradise  Lost"  the  Russian  peasants  be- 
gan to  be  bought  and  sold  apart  from  the  land. 
To  be  sure,  the  boydr  was  not  allowed  to  denude  of 
workers  the  lands  he  held  subject  to  the  obliga- 
tion to  render  military  service;  but  he  could  sell 
the  peasants  from  his  private  lands.     So  Russian 


220  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

serfdom  passed  into  complete  slavery,  and  it  be- 
came one  of  the  worst  kinds.  During  the  eigh- 
teenth century  the  trend  was  all  in  the  direction 
of  emphasizing  the  absolute  power  of  the  master. 
Catherine  II,  the  "liberal"  monarch,  friend  of 
Voltaire,  Diderot,  and  the  French  Encyclopedists, 
denied  the  slaves  the  right  to  bring  her  any  com- 
plaint against  their  masters  and  gave  the  masters 
the  right  to  banish  their  slaves  to  hard  labor  in 
Siberia  and  to  bring  them  back  at  will. 

Thus  the  bulk  of  the  population  became  right- 
less.  The  master  could  punish  his  chattels  as  he 
chose,  could  send  them  to  Siberia  at  his  discretion, 
and  could  require  the  local  state  official  to  punish 
them  on  his  demand.  There  were  markets  where 
the  peasants  were  bought  and  sold  like  cattle. 
They  were  among  the  merchandise  offered  at  fairs. 
The  newspapers  carried  many  advertisements  to 
sell  or  to  buy  slaves.  There  were  dealers  who 
made  a  business  of  buying  slaves,  driving  them  to 
market  and  selling  them.  Gangs  of  fair  peasant 
girls  were  even  exported  to  Turkey. 

Under  Alexander  I,  early  in  the  last  century, 
there  were  indications  of  shame  at  this  state  of 
things.  Newspaper  advertisements  of  human 
wares  were  forbidden,  slaves  were  not  to  be  sold 
under  the  hammer,  and  families  were  forbidden  to 
be  broken  up  by  sale  to  different  masters.  The 
law  had  known  nothing  of  free  peasants,  but  in 
1803  manumitted  serfs  were  recognized  as  "free 
tillers  of  the  soil"  and  given  certain  rights. 
About  a  hundred  thousand  of  such  people  came 


CASTE  AND  DEMOCRACY  221 

into  existence  before  emancipation.  In  1842  the 
law  made  provision  for  a  class  of  serfs  with  lim- 
ited obligations  defined  in  writing — villeins,  you 
might  say — and  they  came  to  number  fifty  thou- 
sand. Behind  such  laws  was  the  idea  that  the 
freedom  of  the  serf  was  a  concern  of  the  state  and 
did  not  need  to  be  bought.  Hitherto  the  nobles 
had  imagined  that  when  the  system  was  ended 
they  would  be  paid  for  their  chattels ;  now  it  be- 
came clear  that  the  state  regarded  them  as  other 
than  private  property,  as,  in  fact,  its  subjects. 

The  nobles  wanted  emancipation  to  take  the 
form  of  a  legal  "  freeing' '  of  the  serfs.  The  mas- 
ter would  have  to  pay  the  freed  serfs  something 
for  working  his  fields,  but,  as  offset,  he  would 
make  them  pay  him  rent  for  the  use  of  the  land 
from  which  hitherto  they  had  been  gaining  their 
food.  Here  was  a  Barmecide  feast  to  set  before 
the  bondmen!  The  Government  would  not  hear 
of  their  being  turned  out  empty-handed,  but,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  tsar  insisted  that  somehow 
emancipation  must  be  put  through  without  finan- 
cial damage  to  the  masters.  So,  instead  of  making 
the  serfs  owners  of  the  soil  on  which  they  had  long 
been  allowed  to  raise  their  sustenance, — about  half 
the  extent  of  the  estates, — the  state  regarded  it 
as  the  lord's  land  and  compelled  him  to  pay  for  it 
at  a  price  from  fifty  to  one  hundred  per  cent,  above 
its  true  value.  The  hanging  of  this  millstone 
about  the  neck  of  the  freedmen  is  one  great  reason 
for  their  disappointingly  slow  economic  progress 
since  emancipation. 


222  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

It  speaks  well  for  the  Russian  nature  that  thrall- 
dom  left  so  few  scars  on  the  souls  of  the  peasants. 
Through  rayless  centuries  they  somehow  kept 
alive  the  conviction  that  "a  man  's  a  man  for  a* 
that."  Caste  feeling  has  never  been  as  deep  in 
Russia  as  it  is  in  Germany  and  England.  Ever 
the  servants  have  clung  to  a  certain  freedom  of 
speech  toward  their  lords.  Strive  as  they  might, 
the  masters  could  not  make  their  household  serfs 
mute  wooden  automata,  after  the  "  Western"  man- 
ner. The  moujik  stands  up  straight  and  looks 
you  in  the  eye.  In  the  intercourse  of  prince  and 
peasant  there  has  been  an  easy  democratic  famil- 
iarity. High  or  low,  one  is  addressed  by  his 
Christian  name,  together  with  his  father's  name. 
To  the  hind,  the  pomieshchik  he  works  for,  who 
may  be  a  prince,  is  "  Gregory  Nicolaievitch, "  if  he 
is  Gregory,  son  of  Nicholas.  The  pronoun  used 
is  the  familiar  "thou,"  not  the  formal  "you." 
On  Easter  Day,  after  church-service,  the  exalted 
nobleman  will  without  a  moment's  hesitation  kiss 
his  coachman  three  times  on  the  lips,  exclaiming, 
"Christ  has  risen."  The  only  touch  of  caste  is 
that  the  coachman  will  wait  for  the  "barin"  to 
take  the  initiative. 

Among  the  heads  of  offices  I  noticed  in  the  treat- 
ment of  the  employees  who  came  at  summons  or 
who  brought  documents  to  sign  a  genial  caressing 
manner  such  as  I  have  never  seen,  in  an  American 
man  of  affairs.  On  arrival  at  his  "cabinet"  in 
the  morning,  an  official  will  go  up  to  each  employee 
in  the  room,  greet  him,  shake  hands,  and  inquire 


CASTE  AND  DEMOCRACY  223 

as  to  his  health.  I  am  assured  that  this  affable 
manner  is  not  something  recent,  but  has  always 
had  a  place  in  Russian  offices.  They  account  for 
the  difference  between  themselves  and  Americans 
in  this  respect  by  saying,  "We  have  time  to  be 
genial. ' ' 

Their  fraternalism  is  not  all  due  to  the  strong 
fellow-feeling  that  units  Russians,  even  across  the 
gulf  of  caste.  In  part  it  reflects  the  influence  of 
the  ' 'people-worshipping"  intelligentsia  from  the 
forties  of  the  last  century  down  to  the  present. 
This  intelligentsia  was  recruited  from  two  classes 
— the  " repentant  noblemen"  and  the  rebellious 
declasse  who  in  our  country  would  be  of  the  sort  to 
''work  their  way  through  college."  The  former 
loved  and  worshipped  the  people  as  only  a  Russian 
can  love  and  worship  those  upon  whose  misery  he 
feels  he  has  been  made  to  thrive  against  his  will. 
The  latter,  the  Bazarofs  and  their  successors, 
found  it  just  as  easy  to  exalt  the  people,  for  were 
they  not  bone  of  the  people 's  bone  and  flesh  of  the 
people's  flesh,  save  that,  unlike  the  masses,  they 
had  become  articulate?  Except  in  official  mani- 
festos, the  cult  of  the  people  stopped  at  the  doors 
of  the  chancelleries  of  government.  It  pene- 
trated, however,  quite  deeply  into  the  fiber  of 
Russian  society,  even  among  the  ruling  class.  De- 
ride as  he  might  the  social  utopianism  of  the 
intelligentsia,  serene  as  he  might  remain  about 
appropriating  the  results  of  others'  toil,  the  up- 
per-class man  could  not  help  being  affected  by  the 
spiritual  web  of  "people-worship"  that  the  intel- 


224  KUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

ligentsia  had  laboriously  spun  around  him.  And 
when  the  master  is  not  very  sure  of  his  superior- 
ity, it  takes  no  extraordinary  audacity  for  the 
servant  to  be  able  to  look  him  in  the  eye. 

"The  time  is  by,"  wrote  the  tsar's  brother  in  a 
warning  letter  to  Nicholas  a  few  months  before 
the  crash,  "the  time  is  by  when  nine-tenths  of  the 
people  can  be  treated  as  manure  to  grow  a  few 
roses."  The  revolution  lifted  the  pride  of  the 
masses  and  made  them  more  self-assertive.  In  a 
group  gathered  about  a  political  placard  or  lis- 
tening while  one  reads  aloud  a  newspaper,  each 
feels  competent  to  deliver  an  opinion  worthy  of 
the  attention  of  the  rest.  The  rough  teamster  or 
common  soldier  fully  ventilates  his  mind  in  his 
raucous,  uncultivated  voice.  Of  deference  to  the 
broader  education  and  experience  of  the  black- 
coated  man  there  is  no  sign,  for  the  agitators  have 
convinced  the  unlettered  that  their  own  opinions 
are  wise  and  weighty. 

The  Eussian  capitalist  is  less  of  a  mixer  with  his 
working-men  than  the  American  capitalist.  In 
public  gatherings — a  war-industries  committee, 
for  instance — the  working-men  delegates  sit  on  the 
left,  while  the  bourgeois  delegates  sit  on  the  right. 
Under  the  old  regime  the  employer  fell  into  the 
habit  of  treating  his  man  as  a  clod,  and  in  these 
perilous  days  he  can  not  at  once  acquire  an  affable 
manner.  Well  he  knows  how  truly  the  epithet 
"exploiter"  fitted  his  conduct  during  the  period 
when  labor  was  kept  weaponless  for  his  profit. 
Conviction    of    sin   chokes   his   protestation   of 


CASTE  AND  DEMOCRACY  225 

brotherly  interest  in  his  new  fellow-citizens. 
A  guilty  apprehension  of  how  their  former 
wage-serfs  must  feel  toward  them  inspired  terror 
among  the  bourgeoisie  after  the  Bolshevist  over- 
turn. For  the  most  part,  they  were  in  the  bluest 
of  blue  funks.  They  realized  how  insignificant 
they  were  in  number  and  how  powerless,  now  that 
the  gendarmes  and  Cossacks  were  out  of  the  game, 
the  soldiers  five-sixths  proletarian  in  sympathy, 
and  the  workingmen  armed.  When  they  did  not 
flee  to  Finland,  the  Crimea,  or  the  Cossack  coun- 
try, they  shut  themselves  up  in  their  houses,  ex- 
pecting the  worst.  When  presenting  letters  of 
introduction  to  intellectuals  and  Kadet  leaders  in 
Petrograd  in  December,  I  usually  had  to  explain 
through  the  locked  door  who  I  was,  and  I  had  to 
hand  in  my  letter  through  a  door  kept  carefully 
on  the  chain.  Five  of  those  to  whom  I  brought 
letters  were  under  arrest!  Friends  who  visited 
the  Kerensky  supporters  confined  in  the  Fortress 
of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul  reported  that,  although 
well  treated,  they  lived  in  dread  of  the  massacre 
they  felt  sure  would  come.  The  panic  inspired  in 
the  small,  possessing  class  by  the  menacing  air, 
the  truculent  words,  and  the  occasional  brutalities 
of  the  proletariat  was  cleverly  played  upon  by  the 
Bolshevik  leaders,  with  the  purpose  of  reducing  j 
their  opponents  to  complete  impotence.  Social- 
ists, of  course,  as  humanitarian  idealists,  are 
about  the  last  persons  to  be  guilty  of  ferocity.  It 
is,  in  fact,  the  Conservatives,  champions  of  throne, 
altar,  and  property,  who  riot  in  barbarity.    The 


226  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

Royalists  of  the  French  Revolution  boasted  that 
they  would  break  every  revolutionist  on  the  wheel 
when  Paris  was  again  under  their  control.  The 
punitive  expeditions  that  set  the  great  German 
landlords  of  the  Baltic  Provinces  back  in  the  sad- 
dle after  the  insurrection  of  1905  were  quite 
Turkish  in  their  methods.  If  the  Russian  bour- 
geoisie should  suddenly  gain  the  upper  hand,  no 
doubt  they  will  visit  bloody  vengeance  on  those 
who  made  them  tremble.  On  the  other  hand,  I 
judge  that  the  allusions  to  the  guillotine  in  Trot- 
zky's  ^speeches  were  not  signs  of  blood-thirst,  but 
were  intended  to  intimidate  the  bourgeoisie,  so 
that  they  would  submit  without  resistance  to  Bol- 
shevist measures. 

During  one  long  autumn  afternoon  in  Kakhetia 
in  the  Caucasus  our  train  lay  alongside  a  troop- 
train  from  the  Caucasian  front,  and  we  could  ob- 
serve the  results  of  the  breakdown  of  Russian  mili- 
tary discipline.  The  floor  of  the  box-cars  that  the 
soldiers  lived  in  was  thick  with  dirt,  and  their 
clothing  was  in  an  indescribably  filthy  condition. 
Often  their  uniforms  were  torn  and  ragged,  and 
some  went  barefoot,  having  traded  off  their  boots 
for  liquor.  Most  of  them  seemed  to  have  become 
mere  "bums,"  without  standards  or  self-respect. 
They  whiled  away  the  hours  in  dancing  and  stamp- 
ing about  their  cars  to  the  music  of  an  accordion 
or  harmonica.  At  the  last  station  a  wine-shop 
had  been  raided,  and  not  a  few  showed  marked 
exhilaration.  According  to  the  mood  of  the  mo- 
ment, they  embraced  one  another  or  quarrelled. 


CASTE  AND  DEMOCRACY  227 

One  soldier  pursued  another  up  the  station-terrace 
with  a  drawn  sword,  but  a  crowd  of  his  comrades 
caught  him,  and  he  was  escorted  back  to  his  car, 
reeling  and  singing.  When  the  first  rush  oc- 
curred, an  officer  ran  out  of  the  station-buffet  and 
disappeared  into  the  railway  administration  build- 
ing. Nobody  blamed  him,  for  when  trouble  oc- 
curs the  officers  are  quite  impotent  and  would  be 
the  first  victims,  did  they  interfere. 

The  smooth-faced  lads  were  not  so  bestial  as 
the  older  soldiers.  The  ring-leaders  in  demoral- 
ization were  men  in  their  thirties.  Those  who 
made  the  most  noise  and  took  the  initiative  in  mis- 
conduct were  the  more  repulsive,  the  low-browed, 
snub-nosed,  heavy- jowled,and  big-mouthed.  The 
decent-looking  soldiers  seemed  to  be  without  influ- 
ence over  the  behavior  of  the  troop.  The  digni- 
fied Georgian  peasants  on  our  train  stared  in  si- 
lent amazement  at  the  looks  and  behavior  of  these 
flushed,  tousled,  unshaven  defenders  of  the  flag. 
The  language  of  the  maudlin  merrymakers  was  so 
filthy  that  the  ladies  in  the  cars  opposite  were 
hastily  conducted  elsewhere.  Some  of  them  took 
to  bellowing  that  the  Georgian  soldiers  on  our 
train  were  runaways,  but  they  took  great  umbrage 
when  Prince  T — ,  an  old  revolutionist,  replied 
that  probably  many  of  them  were  deserters.  It 
looked  for  a  while  as  if  the  uniformed  men  on  the 
two  trains  might  come  to  blows,  but  a  tactful  allu- 
sion to  the  prince's  half -century  of  exile  saved  the 
situation. 

At  this  time  the  Georgians  were  shuddering  at 


228  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

what  might  occur  when  the  demoralized  soldiers 
of  the  Caucasian  front  were  demobilized  and  re- 
turned to  Russia  through  Georgia.  Only  three 
days  before,  a  regiment  passing  through  Kutais 
had  looted  shops,  got  drunk,  and  terrorized  the 
town,  until  they  were  taken  in  hand  by  two  bat- 
talions of  Cossacks  and  two  of  the  cadet  officers 
from  Tiflis.  About  the  same  time,  at  the  Tiflis 
railway-station,  two  hundred  of  these  soldiers  took 
it  into  their  heads  that  they  wanted  to  go  to  Yel- 
izavetpol  "where  the  fruit  comes  from,"  and  they 
demanded  a  car  for  their  use  from  the  command- 
ant of  the  station.  On  his  refusal,  they  beat  him 
to  death. 

Under  the  old  regime  there  was  a  truly  Prussian 
distance  between  officers  and  men.  The  latter 
were  punished  in  the  guard-house  for  failing  to 
salute  or  for  remaining  seated  in  the  former's 
presence.  Common  soldiers  were  not  allowed  in- 
side tram-cars,  in  the  better  restaurants,  or  in  a 
theater,  save  in  the  gallery.  If  a  superior  officer 
entered  a  playhouse,  all  other  officers  stood,  and 
they  remained  standing  as  long  as  the  lights  were 
on.  But  in  Vladivostok  in  July  one  never  saw 
a  military  salute.  Off  duty,  officers  and  privates 
called  one  another  "comrade"  and  mingled  on  a 
footing  of  equality.  Following  the  order  of 
Gutchkof,  first  revolutionary  minister  of  war,  the 
superior  was  no  longer  addressed  as  "Your  this" 
or  "Your  that,"  but  as  "Mr.  Colonel"  or  "Mr. 
General."  Petrograd  had  ordered  that  the  hand- 
some residence  of  the  admiral  be  turned  into  a 


CASTE  AND  DEMOCRACY  229 

naval  officers '  club,  but  the  sailors  thought  it ' '  un- 
fair," so  it  was  opened  for  naval  men,  whether 
officers  or  sailors.  I  was  assured  that  the  election 
of  officers  by  men  was  common,  and  that  those 
thus  singled  out  sometimes  declined  the  honor, 
deeming  officering  too  difficult  under  existing  con- 
ditions. The  men  assumed  that  an  officer  who  was 
set  over  them  without  their  consent  must  be  a  ty- 
rant. Russian  sailors  who  visited  the  Buffalo 
during  her  stay  in  Vladivostok  were  astonished 
to  hear  American  sailors  speak  well  of  their  of- 
ficers. 

It  is  quite  unjust  to  lay  all  the  blame  for  the 
growth  of  insubordination  in  the  Russian  Army 
on  certain  errors  of  Gutchkof.  Under  the  old  re- 
gime, discipline  in  the  sense  of  obedience  prompted 
by  respect  for  the  worth  and  rank  of  one's  of- 
ficer did  not  exist.  Things  were  so  bad  that 
Grand  Duke  Nicholas  authorized  an  officer  to  shoot 
down  at  once  any  man  who  failed  to  obey  his  first 
order.  The  terroristic  system  employed  against 
the  men  is  illustrated  by  an  incident  told  me  by 
an  army  surgeon  who  witnessed  it.  A  man  of  the 
sanitary  squad  while  getting  his  pay  remarked 
to  the  company  secretary  that  it  was  queer  that 
sanitars  and  orderlies  had  not  been  included  in 
the  Easter  distribution  of  presents  among  the 
soldiers.  The  secretary  tattled  this  remark  to  the 
commandant,  who  thereupon  beat  the  sanitar 
with  his  fists  and,  when  the  prostrate  man  pro- 
tested, threatened  to  shoot  him  if  he  uttered 
another  word.    The  man  was  then  stood  up  for 


230  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

two  hours  in  front  of  a  trench  for  the  Germans  to 
shoot  at,  and  a  squad  of  fifty  men  were  ordered 
to  defile  him.  When  they  refused,  they  were  pun- 
ished by  being  made  to  stand  at  attention  for  two 
hours  under  enemy  fire. 

Among  the  officers  themselves  there  was  little 
discipline.  They  drank  heavily,  gambled  with 
cards,  had  loose  women  in  their  quarters,  and  dis- 
regarded many  general  orders  aiming  to  regulate 
their  conduct  in  the  interest  of  the  service.  Some- 
times the  men  were  sent  into  an  unauthorized  and 
utterly  hopeless  attack  by  their  drunken  officers. 
Scandalous,  too,  was  the  neglect  of  the  sick  and 
wounded  by  those  in  places  of  authority.  As  a 
result,  the  men  hated  their  officers. 

What  the  soldiers  had  been  through  tended  to 
break  down  their  morale.  Lack  of  weapons  was 
chronic.  Before  Riga  in  1915  there  were  but  half 
as  many  rifles  as  there  were  men.  In  the  trenches 
were  a  multitude  of  utterly  unarmed  men,  who 
gained  a  weapon  only  when  a  comrade  fell.  They 
were  fed  well  enough  and  had  plenty  of  cartridges, 
but  they  lacked  rifles.  On  the  other  hand,  they  had 
artillery  in  abundance,  but  they  lacked  ammuni- 
tion for  it.  Besides  these  maddening  conditions, 
the  soldiers  had  no  idea  what  they  were  fighting 
for.  Prussia,  Serbia,  and  the  Dardanelles  were 
as  much  beyond  their  ken  as  the  geography  of 
Mars.  Little  meaning  could  the  war  have  for 
those  westbound  Siberian  troops  who,  on  reaching 
Omsk,  supposed  they  were  at  the  front  and  at 


CASTE  AND  DEMOCRACY  231 

every  big  town  from  there  on  poured  out  of  their 
box-cars  ready  to  repel  the  Germans! 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  the  revolution  did  not  de- 
stroy discipline,  but  simply  made  apparent  the 
absence  of  it. 

The  makers  of  the  March  revolution,  knowing 
that  the  older  and  higher  officers,  while  they  might 
despise  Nicholas,  had  no  love  for  a  truly  demo- 
cratic social  order,  hastened  to  forestall  any  at- 
tempt at  an  army  counter-revolution  by  telling 
the  soldiers  that  they  were  now  free  citizens, 
that  they  must  scrutinize  every  order  carefully, 
and  that  they  must  obey  none  that  seemed  to  be- 
tray them  to  the  Romanofs  or  the  Germans. 
Thus  was  raised  up  a  Frankenstein.  Free  citi- 
zens !  How  could  the  soldiers  take  this  order  ex- 
cept as  meaning  that  they  were  free  of  the  most 
oppressive  thing  in  their  lives — their  military 
service  and  obedience?  If  not  that,  what  could 
the  revolution  mean  to  them? 

Gutchkof  's  famous  " Order  No.  I,"  to  the  effect 
that  the  rights  of  the  soldier  and  those  of  the 
officer  are  the  same,  wiped  out  all  those  obliga- 
tory distinctions  and  attentions  by  which  the  pri- 
vate is  made  to  feel  the  superiority  of  his  officer. 
Then  the  soldiers  were  ordered  to  hold  meetings 
and  elect  a  committee,  the  chairman  of  which 
should  be  ex  officio  the  commanding  officer.  To 
these  committees  Gfutchkof  assigned  specific 
functions  relating  to  food,  furlough,  and  discip- 
line.   All  complaints  by  officers  of  insubordina- 


232  BUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

tion  on  the  part  of  a  soldier  were  referred  to  this 
committee,  and  it  fixed  the  punishment.  Unfor- 
tunately, the  officers  were  not  democratic  in  their 
feelings  and  manners,  and  in  these  committees  they 
failed  to  work  harmoniously  with  the  men.  They 
lacked  skill  in  carrying  their  men  with  them,  so 
that  the  men  formed  the  habit  of  outvoting  them, 
which  was  bad. 

The  soldiers  wanted  the  higher  command  purged 
of  certain  evil  or  unworthy  officers  who  had  be- 
longed to  the  secret  police  or  who  had  been  no- 
torious for  brutality  to  their  men  or  for  hostility 
to  the  revolution.  But  the  generals  hung  to- 
gether, as  they  always  had  under  the  Tsar,  and  the 
obnoxious  officers  remained.  The  war  ministry 
meant  well,  but  high  cabals  made  its  decisions  of 
no  effect. 

Then  the  soldiers  themselves  undertook  to  de- 
lete the  bad  officers.  For  example,  the  Tver  gar- 
rison demanded  that  the  action  of  the  men  in  their 
meeting  or  by  their  committee  should  have  the 
effect  of  suspending  an  officer  until  the  truth  or 
falsity  of  charges  had  been  established  in  an  open 
trial.  The  war  ministry  never  recognized  such 
a  right  in  the  men,  but  the  Petrograd  Sovyet  did 
so  and  even  created  a  committee  to  consider 
charges  brought  by  soldiers  against  their  officers. 
On  the  other  hand,  not  even  the  Sovyet  counten- 
anced the  demand,  voiced  from  some  quarters, 
that  the  soldiers  be  given  the  right  to  dismiss  and 
elect  their  officers. 

To  restore  the  confidence  of  the  men  in  their 


CASTE  AND  DEMOCRACY  233 

officers,  Kerensky  borrowed  from  the  French  revo-  ! 
lutionists  the  idea  of  the  Kommissar.  With  each 
higher  officer  was  associated  a  Kommissar,  who 
was  usually  a  man  with  a  record  of  prison  or  exile 
to  Siberia  for  the  cause  of  freedom  and  whose 
counter-signature  was  necessary  to  the  validity 
of  every  order.  For  a  while  this  helped  discip- 
line, but  presently  the  soldiers  came  to  distrust 
the  Kommissar  as  a  bourgeois,  unless  he  was 
"out"  with  the  officer,  which  rarely  occurred,  as 
by  this  time  most  officers  were  in  full  sympathy 
with  the  revolution.  Finally,  the  men  ceased  to 
pay  attention  even  to  their  own  committees  sent 
to  headquarters  to  stand  for  their  ideas  and  care 
for  their  interests. 

The  rapid  loss  of  morale  is  reflected  in  the 
figures  for  desertions.  In  the  summer  of  1916  it 
was  communicated  to  army  officers  that  the  total 
of  desertions  since  the  beginning  of  the  war 
reached  five  millions.  Many  of  these  had  de- 
serted to  the  enemy,  sometimes  entire  companies 
going  over.  Between  the  March  revolution  and 
May,  it  is  said,  the  desertions  amounted  to  two 
millions,  nearly  all,  of  course,  behind  the  lines 
rather  than  across  them. 

It  was  the  Bolshevist  propaganda,  beginning 
among  the  soldiers  early  in  May,  that  gave  the 
finishing  blow  to  the  discipline  of  the  army.  The 
socialist  leaders  thought  it  a  clever  policy  to  take 
Russia  out  of  the  war  by  seducing  the  soldiers, 
rather  than  by  changing  the  nation's  will  to  fight. 
They  did,  indeed,  defeat  the  intention  of  their  po- 


234  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

litical  opponents  to  carry  on  the  war,  but  in  so 
doing  they  fostered  the  spirit  of  insubordination, 
until  the  army  was  utterly  worthless  as  a  fighting 
force  and  Russia  was  left  defenceless  before  the 
advance  of  the  Germans.  By  their  unscrupulous 
short-cut  to  the  realization  of  their  pacifist  aims, 
they  ruined  their  country  and  with  it  the  working- 
class  they  thought  to  advance.  Not  while  this 
horrible  instance  of  misapplied  democracy  sur- 
vives in  the  memory  of  men  will  a  nation  tolerate 
such  a  propaganda  of  disobedience  and  anarchy 
among  troops  as  went  on  unhindered  among  the 
Russian  soldiers  in  the  summer  and  autumn  of 
1917. 


A  Georgian  beauty,  Kakhetia 


CHAPTER  XII 

RUSSIAN  WOMEN  AND  THEIR 
OUTLOOK 

IF  curbingtme's  inclinations  for  duty's  sake  is 
a  sign  of  character,  then  over  most  of  the 
world  women  have  more  character  than  men. 
Certainly,  in  the  enervating  climates,  among  the 
manana  peoples  and  through  the  belts  of  spiritual 
hook-worm,  the  women  show  themselves  the 
stronger  sex.  They  know  no  more  than  the  men, 
but  they  are  truer  to  their  purpose,  more  faithful 
to  what  they  conceive  to  be  their  duty.  In  the 
most  advanced  peoples,  to  be  sure,  this  moral  su- 
periority of  the  female  sex  lessens  or  disappears 
altogether.  No  one  would  be  so  rash  as  to  main- 
tain that  the  women  of  the  United  States  or  of 
western  Europe  are  as  much  better  than  their  men 
folk  as  are  those  of  South  America  and  the  Orient. 
While  our  men  have  found  means  of  fortifying  and 
stabilizing  male  character,  they  unwittingly  sap 
female  character  by  condemning  to  corroding  idle- 
ness a  considerable  portion  of  their  women  folk — 
the  portion,  too,  that  the  rest  look  up  to  and  pat- 
tern after.  Thanks  to  the  invasion  of  the  home  by 
factory  product  and  to  the  social  taboo  on  the  mar- 
ried women  earning  outside  the  home,  ten  or  fifteen 
per  cent,  of  the  wives  of  active  breadwinners  have 
nothing  serious  to  do  their  lives  long  but  bear  and 

237 


238  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

rear  from  one  to  four  children,  the  household  in- 
dustries which  kept  their  grandmothers  busy  and 
responsible  having  gone  by  the  board.  No  wonder 
that  among  well-to-do  people  the  daughter-of-the- 
horse-leech  type  is  more  in  evidence  than  you  find 
her  in  any  of  the  earlier  stages  of  social  devel- 
ment.  The  factory  machine  has  turned  more 
home-staying  women  into  parasites  than  ever  hu- 
man slavery  did.  That  so  many  women  of  ease 
are  refusing  to  serve  longer  as  dummies  upon 
which  vain  men  may  drape  the  tokens  of  their 
financial  success,  that  they  are  coming  out  of  their 
doll's  houses  in  order  to  take  a  hand  in  the  seri- 
ous business  of  life,  is  simply  another  proof  of 
how  hard  it  is  to  spoil  the  sex. 

Let  one  visit  war-worn  Russia  if  one  would 
measure  the  moral  superiority  of  women.  For  a 
year  the  streets,  public  conveyances,  and  resorts 
have  been  full  of  idling  men  in  uniform.  Wherever 
you  traveled  you  found  that  a  third  or  more  of 
the  passengers  by  rail  or  boat  were  soldiers. 
Regular  drill  seemed  to  have  been  given  up. 
Aside  from  the  few  who  sought  to  earn  a  little 
by  odd  jobs,  the  millions  of  khaki-clad  not  at  the 
front  did  nothing  but  eat,  sleep,  and  amuse  them- 
selves. In  sharpest  contrast  with  this  vast  com- 
pulsory demoralization  was  the  presence  of  toiling 
women  in  unwonted  places — women  plowing,  hay- 
ing, reaping,  wielding  pick  and  shovel  on  a  high- 
way or  railroad,  filling  the  engine-tender,  washing 
cars,  carrying  the  hose  along  the  roof  of  trains, 
pushing  baggage-trucks,  even  offering  themselves 


RUSSIAN  WOMEN  239 

as  porters  to  carry  luggage,  collecting  fares  on 
trams,  punching  tickets  on  trains,  controlling  traf- 
fic on  street  corners,  serving  behind  post  and  tele- 
graph wickets,  clerking  in  banks  and  business 
houses, — women  rarely  gaping,  gossiping,  posing, 
preening,  or  seeking  notice,  but  attending  gravely 
to  their  new  duties  and  doing  their  best  to  make 
good  on  the  job. 

Enter  any  public  office,  and  you  would  notice  a 
fourth  or  a  fifth  of  the  men  employees  chatting 
or  fussing  with  their  cigarettes,  their  tea,  or  their 
newspaper,  while  the  young  women,  with  a  little 
anxious  pucker  in  their  brows,  were  absorbed  in 
their  work.  Often  the  male  clerks  waited  upon 
the  public  with  ill-concealed  boredom  and  super- 
ciliousness, whereas  the  female  clerks  never 
seemed  to  forget  that  they  were  there  to  serve  and 
answered  with  gentle  directness  and  painstaking 
lucidity  the  inquiries  addressed  to  them  by  rough 
working-men  and  peasants. 

In  vodka  days,  of  course,  it  was  seldom  that 
women  besotted  themselves.  But  hardly  will  this 
be  counted  unto  them  for  righteousness,  for,  the 
world  over,  women  are  so  much  freer  than  men 
from  vicious  self-indulgence  that  the  latter  pre- 
tend woman  is  exempt  from  the  cravings  that  tor- 
ment the  other  sex.  In  Russia  there  are  still  signs 
of  an  illicit  traffic  in  liquor,  but  never  are  women 
mixed  up  with  it.  Officers,  who  during  the  recent 
crumbling  of  military  discipline  might  be  expected 
to  feel  keenly  their  responsibility,  would  deliber- 
ately put  an  enemy  into  the  mouth  to  steal  away 


240  KUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

their  brains.  I  have  seen  a  drunken  major  in 
a  street  in  Samarkand  bring  shame  on  his  "uni- 
form before  the  soldiers  and  natives;  I  have 
known  a  captain,  traveling  with  his  men  in  the 
Caucasus,  to  fill  himself  with  boot-legged,  home- 
made alcohol  at  a  station,  and  the  rest  of  the  night 
make  a  beast  of  himself  on  the  train;  but  never 
have  I  seen  a  Russian  woman  so  lacking  in  self- 
control  as  to  let  herself  become  a  public  scandal. 
Through  this  time  of  strain  and  discomfort  the 
behavior  of  the  women  has  been  altogether  admir- 
able. Without  complaint  they  stand  or  lie  on  the 
pavement  in  a  long  queue  for  two  nights  and  a  day 
in  order  to  get  shoes  or  cloth  for  their  family. 
Good-humoredly  they  struggle  with  men  for 
places  on  the  platform  of  the  tram-cars  or, 
without  a  word  of  outcry,  perilously  cling  to  the 
lowest  step.  Through  the  wearisome  nights  on 
the  packed  trains  I  never  saw  them  inconsider- 
ate in  the  bestowal  of  themselves  or  their  belong- 
ings, which  is  more  than  one  can  say  of  the  men. 
Two  women  curl  up  in  an  upper  berth  in  order 
to  leave  more  room  for  the  men  below.  When  we 
came  into  a  coupe  in  which  every  place  to  sit  was 
"taken"  and  faced  a  night  on  our  feet,  we  could 
tell  from  the  tiny  frown  that  soon  showed  itself  in 
the  face  of  some  woman  that  she  was  contriving 
how  to  solve  the  problem  of  these  forlorn  "  Amer- 
icantsi."  Presently,  by  repiling  the  luggage  or 
getting  another  woman  into  an  upper  berth,  or  in- 
ducing men  to  take  turns  with  us  in  reclining  in  a 
corner  seat,  or  discovering  that  some  one  would  be 


RUSSIAN  WOMEN  241 

getting  off  three  stations  farther  on,  she  had  us 
provided  for.  Did  the  mob  of  famished  passen- 
gers collar  all  the  food  in  the  station  buffet  before 
we  could  make  our  wants  known,  some  woman 
would  play  raven  to  our  Elijah.  Were  we  in 
trouble  about  getting  a  ticket,  locating  a  hotel,  or 
making  ourselves  understood,  it  was  usually  a 
woman  who  took  our  case  to  heart  and  worried 
about  us.  Russian  men  are  quite  as  good  fellow- 
travelers  as  men  anywhere,  but  Russian  women,  in 
their  way  of  combining  a  firm  insistence  on  their 
own  rights  with  a  scrupulous  respect  for  the  rights 
of  others  and  a  practical  interest  in  the  welfare  Of 
others,  seem  like  citizens  of  some  Altruria  to  come. 

The  wholesome  faces  of  the  sturdy  country 
women  who  in  this  time  of  food  shortage  sell  edi- 
bles at  the  station-platforms  express  goW-will 
toward  the  customer,  coupled  with  anxiety  lest 
he  take  advantage  of  their  clumsy  mental  arith- 
metic. They  are  so  honest  that  several  times  they 
have  made  a  commotion  to  attract  my  attention 
when  I  have  paid  too  much  or  left  my  purchase 
behind  at  the  starting-bell  of  the  train.  Often  I 
have  handed  them  too  much  change  to  see  what 
they  would  do,  and  always  they  have  returned  the 
excess.  Only  once  did  a  woman  huckster  try  to 
get  the  better  of  me. 

Two  and  a  half  centuries  under  the  Tatar  yoke 
caused  the  position  of  women  in  old  Muscovy  to  be 
almost  Asiatic.  Only  two  hundred  years  ago 
Peter  the  Great  found  the  women  folk  of  the  upper 
classes  confined  to  the  terem,  or  attic  rooms,  as 


^42  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

if  they  were  inmates  of  an  Oriental  harem.  Yet 
somehow  the  sex  has  come  forward  so  rapidly  that 
in  the  novels  and  plays  of  the  great  Russian 
writers,  such  as  Pushkin,  Turgenief,  and  Tolstoi, 
it  is  the  woman  who  shows  character,  while  often 
the  man  is  puling,  hesitant,  ineffectual.  The 
hero  talks  endlessly  about  his  hopes  and  ideals, 
but  lifts  no  finger  to  realize  them.  His  good  reso- 
lutions evaporate  in  talk.  In  the  end  it  is  the 
heroine  who,  without  saying  much,  sees  the  wise 
thing  to  do  and  does  it. 

"Why  is  it,"  I  asked  an  eminent  literary 
women,  "that  your  great  writers  portray  the 
woman  as  the  stronger  character?  Were  they, 
then,  feminists  at  heart?" 

"Not  at  all,"  she  replied.  "They  simply  pic- 
tured Russian  life  as  they  found  it." 

The  agent  of  an  American  implement  company 
visiting  one  of  the  big  farms  in  central  Russia 
found  the  foreman  riding  about  on  horseback  and 
cracking  a  long  whip  over  the  heads  of  the  women 
driving  the  oxen  yoked  to  the  plows  and  harrows. 
The  agent  stopped  the  foreman  to  talk  with  him 
about  seeders,  and  the  women,  on  reaching  the  end 
of  the  field,  quit  work  and  lay  down.  No  doubt 
this  is  far  from  typical,  but  even  in  the  cities  one 
is  struck  by  the  absence  of  chivalry  in  man's  treat- 
ment of  women.  Never  did  I  see  a  man  in  a  tram- 
car  rise  and  offer  his  seat  to  a  woman,  although 
I  did  see  a  woman  offer  her  seat  to  a  rosy-cheeked 
seminarist,  and  the  budding  priest  took  it !  It  is 
not  uncommon  to  see  a  woman,  holding  a  baby, 


RUSSIAN  WOMEN  243 

stand  while  the  seats  are  occupied  by  men,  most  of 
them  hulking  soldiers  with  nothing  to  do  but  take 
free  rides  all  over  the  city. 

The  probable  explanation  is  that  the  Slavs, 
lying  far  to  one  side,  missed  the  influence  of  the 
Crusades  and  of  the  knightly  orders  they  begot. 
The  modern  chivalrous  attitude  toward  women  is 
the  lineal  descendant  of  the  ideal  of  knighthood 
which  sprang  up  in  the  medieval  castles  of  western 
Europe.  Modified  into  the  "gentleman"  ideal,  it 
has  been  democratized  until  the  old  coarse  peas- 
ant attitude  toward  women  that  one  still  finds 
among  rural  Germans  and  Slavs  has  well  nigh  dis- 
appeared. 

It  is  customary  to  laud  this  male  chivalry  as  a 
priceless  possession,  but  what  I  have  seen  in  Rus- 
sia raises  doubts.  Would  her  women  be*  so  splen- 
didly independent  and  self-reliant  as  they  are  if 
they  were  favored  and  shielded  as  are  many 
American  women?  Russian  men  seem  disposed 
to  give  women  a  square  deal,  but  nothing  more. 
Would  it  be  well  for  them  to  have  more?  Does 
not  our  chivalry  often  hinder  the  development  of 
American  women,  as,  for  example,  in  the  case  of 
the  wife  whose  husband  keeps  from  her  all  his 
financial  cares,  with  the  result  that  if  she  loses 
him,  she  faces  the  world  without  a  grain  of  busi- 
ness judgment?  In  our  South  we  see  that  chiv- 
alry is  mostly  for  the  leisure-class  women,  and 
they  pay  for  it  by  being  hedged  in  and  in  a  way 
subjected  to  their  men  folk.  I  have  long  sus- 
pected that  American  women  would  make  a  capi- 


244  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

tal  bargain  if  they  could  give  up  all  our  chivalrous 
favors  in  return  for  equal  rights,  and  what  I  see  in 
Russia  deepens  that  suspicion.  Certainly,  Rus- 
sian women  have  never  for  one  moment  coveted 
special  consideration  from  the  other  sex.  What 
they  have  striven  passionately  for  is  freedom, 
equality  of  opportunity;  and  now,  having  these, 
they  insist  they  can  take  care  of  themselves. 

Sociology,  to  be  sure,  enjoins  a  special  regard 
for  maternity.  The  expectant  or  burdened  mother 
ought  to  be  favored  wherever  she  goes.  No  ra- 
tional people  will  ever  yield  up  its  potential 
mothers  to  machine  industry  or  to  war  as  it  yields 
up  its  men.  At  ticket-windows  and  in  entering 
public  conveyances  the  physically  weaker  sex  will 
perhaps  be  best  protected  from  being  brutally 
thrust  aside  not  by  male  chivalry,  but  by  the  prin- 
ciple of  equal  individual  rights,  which  shields 
women  not  as  females,  but  as  members  of  a  phy- 
sically weaker  class  which  includes  also  the  aged 
and  the  very  young.  All  this,  however,  is  quite 
other  than  insisting  that  a  woman  with  a  man 
must  never  pay  for  her  own  lunch  or  theater- 
ticket. 

Chivalry  is  sex  saturated,  so  there  may  be  a 
subtle  connection  between  the  absence  of  chivalry 
and  the  remarkable  freedom  of  the  Russian  young 
woman  from  sex  consciousness.  I  have  heard  her 
startling  frankness  in  discussing  sex  problems 
with  men,  even  with  casual  compagnons  de  voyage, 
urged  as  discreditable  to  her.  It  ought  rather 
to  count  in  her  favor,  for  I  understand  that  she 


RUSSIAN  WOMEN  245 

is  shocked  and  disgusted  if  the  man,  presuming 
on  this  frankness,  gives  the  conversation  a  per- 
sonal turn.  It  is  as  human  being,  not  as  mere 
female,  that  she  wishes  to  be  treated.  Extraordi- 
nary, too,  is  the  self-confidence  of  attractive 
women  when  traveling  alone.  In  these  times  of 
railway  congestion  not  infrequently  a  man  and  a 
woman,  strangers  to  each  other,  will  be  obliged 
to  pass  the  night  in  a  sleeping-car  coupe  together. 
It  is  good  manners  to  offer  her  the  upper  berth, 
which  she  occupies  with  perfect  self-possession. 
No  one  thinks  evil,  nor  is  there  any.  A  young 
American,  traveling  on  Red  Cross  work,  was 
startled  when  a  pretty  girl  of  seventeen,  daughter 
of  an  official,  en  route  to  her  high  school,  asked 
to  share  his  coupe.  The  girl  showed  no  timorous- 
ness,  and  her  aunt,  who  had  found  a  place  in 
another  car,  never  even  looked  in  to  see  with  what 
sort  of  man  her  niece  was  shut  up  for  the  night. 
Doubtless  the  timidity  felt  by  many  American 
young  women  in  traveling  alone  comes  from  their 
having  been  so  sheltered  that  they  imagine  they 
are  in  constant  danger  when  going  about  unat- 
tended. But  our  factory  girls  and  shop  girls  come 
to  know  better,  and  go  about  almost  as  fearlessly 
as  Russian  girls. 

Old  American  residents  insist  that  the 
"masher,"  no  rare  pest  among  us,  is  unknown  in 
Russia.  On  a  Caspian  boat  I  watched  the  be- 
havior of  the  men  toward  a  very  beautiful  young 
woman  traveling  alone,  and  I  am  bound  to  confess 
that  I  am  not  sure  she  would  have  fared  so  well 


246  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

on  an  American  boat.  While  the  men  fluttered 
about  her  like  moths  about  a  lamp,  none  was  ob- 
trusive or  pressed  his  attentions  to  the  point  of 
embarrassing  her.  Hence  I  am  not  skeptical  when 
told  that  the  well-bred  young  Russian  is  very  high 
in  his  tone  with  innocent  young  women.  Case 
after  case  was  cited  to  me  of  the  admirer  of  an 
actress  or  singer  taking  her  to  a  late  supper,  sur- 
prising her  with  a  generous  bank-note  under  her 
plate,  gaily  enjoying  her  companionship,  and  yet 
leaving  her  finally  at  her  own  door  without  making 
further  advances  or  endeavoring  to  see  her  again. 
Such  gifts  from  disinterested  admirers  are  known 
as  "luck  money,"  and  may  be  accepted  by  per- 
fectly self-respecting  young  artists.  Consider, 
too,  if  the  following  might  happen  in  New  York. 
Two  high  officers  of  the  general  staff  were  greatly 
attracted  by  two  pretty  girls  at  a  masked  ball. 
After  the  ball  was  over  at  a  late  hour,  one  of  them, 
a  prince,  invited  the  party  to  his  sumptuous  apart- 
ments. A  fine  supper  with  champagne  was  served 
from  a  neighboring  restaurant,  musicians  were 
brought  in,  and  all  danced  till  four  o'clock  in  the 
morning.  Then  the  girls  were  sent  home  in  his 
automobile  without  the  least  improper  suggestion 
having  been  made. 

So  liberally  has  the  new  regime  bestowed 
rights  on  women  that  some  of  their  leaders  now 
lay  claim  to  nothing  more.  ' '  The  rest, ' '  they  say, 
"is  up  to  us."  As  far  back  as  1872  women  were 
admitted  to  the  medical  school  of  the  University 
of  Petrograd,  and  the  zemstvos  made  much  use 


RUSSIAN  WOMEN  247 

of  its  graduates  for  the  work  they  maintained 
among  the  peasants.  As  serfs,  the  peasants  were 
used  to  running  to  their  barinya,  or  mistress,  for 
aid,  so  that  when  the  women  doctors  came  among 
them  there  was  no  holding  back  on  their  part.  In 
the  war  of  1877-78  the  girl  " medics"  distin- 
guished themselves,  and  in  1880  they  were  given 
the  rank  of  "woman  physician.' '  The  old  regime 
admitted  women  to  the  schools  of  law,  and  the 
new  regime  has  given  them  the  right  to  practice 
law.  For  some  time  women  have  followed  the 
profession  of  agronom,  or  agricultural  expert, 
and  I  met  a  charming  married  woman  of  perhaps 
twenty-eight  years  who  had  had  charge  of  the 
construction  of  a  piece  of  railroad  in  Central 
Asia!  In  the  schools  of  Russia  before  the  war 
about  fifty-five  per  cent,  of  the  teachers  were 
women ;  with  us  the  percentage  is  eighty.  In  the 
boys'  gymnasia  perhaps  a  tenth  of  the  teaching 
force  are  women.  Usually  they  are  intrusted  only 
with  the  teaching  of  languages,  mathematics  and 
science  being  in  charge  of  men.  In  the  universi- 
ties, women's  as  well  as  men's,  nearly  all  the  chairs 
are  held  by  men ;  but,  so  far  as  that  goes,  very  few 
women  are  yet  qualified  to  fill  university  chairs. 
The  one  profession  from  which  women  are  hope- 
lessly excluded  is  the  priesthood  of  the  Orthodox 
Ohurch.  The  tradition  of  the  church  as  to 
woman's  place  is  very  ancient,  and  therefore  iron. 
It  regards  her  as  unclean,  and  no  woman,  save, 
perhaps,  a  nun  of  saintly  repute,  is  admitted  be- 
hind the  altar,  which  any  man  can  pass  at  will. 


AM 


248  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

Wives  have  full  rights  over  their  property. 
While  the  husband  lives,  his  will  prevails  as  to 
the  training,  education,  and  religion  of  the  chil- 
dren; but  if  he  dies,  the  mother's  guardianship  of 
them  is  a  matter  of  course.  The  right  of  divorce 
from  the  unfaithful  spouse  is  reciprocal.  Women 
with  property  have  long  possessed  the  right  to 
vote  for  members  of  the  zemstvos  and  the  muni- 
cipal councils.  Since  last  spring  all  Russian 
women  have  the  right  to  vote,  as  well  as  to  be 
voted  for.  In  the  working-class  organization  that 
underlies  the  sovyets  the  female  worker  has  an 
equal  voice  with  the  male  worker.  Formerly  it 
was  the  son  one  sacrificed  for,  the  daughters  ac- 
cepting the  discrimination  as  a  matter  of  course ; 
but  nowadays  educated  people  aim  to  give  the 
daughter  as  good  educational  opportunities  as  the 
son. 

That  in  the  general  population  the  schooling  of 
the  sexes  has  been  quite  unequal  appears  from  the 
fact  that  the  census  of  1907  showed  only  thirteen 
per  cent,  of  the  women  able  to  read,  whereas  the 
literate  males  were  twenty-one  out  of  a  hundred. 
At  that  time  two  million  girls  were  at  school.  On 
the  American  basis  there  would  have  been  sixteen 
million  girls  enrolled.  In  1911  about  three  hun- 
dred thousand  girls  were  receiving  some  kind  of 
secondary  education.  Nearly  all  the  girls'  high 
schools  (gymnasia)  are  maintained  by  private 
funds,  only  about  a  tenth  of  their  support  coming 
from  the  state.  In  general,  the  girls  have  been 
kept  by  themselves.    There  are  a  few  coeduca- 


RUSSIAN  WOMEN  249 

tional  high  schools,  but  they  have  been  very  slow 
in  gaining  on  the  other  type.  The  new  spirit  of 
equal  treatment  of  both  sexes  will  probably  re- 
sult, however,  in  opening  all  the  state  high  schools 
to  girls  on  the  same  terms  as  to  boys. 

As  regards  the  admission  of  women  to  the  uni- 
versities and  other  higher  schools,  the  old  Gov- 
ernment, animated  solely  by  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation,  dodged  and  doubled  like  a  hunted 
creature,  so  that  it  left  a  grapevine  trail.  In 
1859,  when  the  state  universities  were  being  re- 
organized, all  but  two,  namely,  Moscow  and  Dor- 
pat,  expressed  themselves  in  favor  of  admitting 
women  on  a  par  with  men.  On  this  hint  women 
were  admitted  to  the  University  of  Petrograd  and 
the  medical  academy,  but  the  students'  political 
movement  which  soon  followed  moved  the  Gov- 
ernment two  years  later  to  close  the  door  against 
women.  The  immediate  result  was  a  wave  of  mi- 
gration of  Russian  women  to  the  Swiss  universi- 
ties. In  1878  a  Petrograd  professor  opened  a  pri- 
vate women's  university  that  became  famous.  In 
1897  the  "Woman's  Medical  Institute  was  opened 
through  private  means.  The  Government  began 
to  admit  women  into  all  its  universities  through 
a  side  door.  " Women's  courses" — we  should 
call  them  "annexes" — were  established,  with 
easier  entrance  requirements  on  account  of  the 
fact  that  the  standard  of  graduation  from  the 
girls'  high  schools  is  generally  a  year  lower  than 
that  from  boys'  high  schools. 

Up  to  1905  it  had  been  necessary  to  get  express 


250  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

permission  from  the  tsar  to  open  a  new  higher 
school.  In  that  year,  thanks  to  the  revolution, 
the  minister  of  instruction  received  authority  to 
act.  The  feeling  for  giving  Sonya  an  equal  chance 
with  Mischa  had  become  so  strong  that  presently 
in  Moscow,  Petrograd,  Kief,  Odessa,  Kharkof, 
Kazan,  Rostof,  and  Tiflis,  private  women's  uni- 
versities sprang  up.  In  1906  all  the  state  uni- 
versities admitted  women  students,  but  within  two 
years  the  reaction  was  strong  enough  to  cast  them 
out  again. 

In  1911,  women  were  given  the  right  to  win  de- 
grees in  the  state  universities  after  passing  the 
same  examinations  that  are  required  of  the  men, 
and  since  the  revolution  these  universities  have 
dropped  all  sex-discrimination  whatsoever.  As 
soon  as  the  girls'  fitting-schools  have  come  up  to 
the  university  entrance  standard,  the  "woman's 
courses"  will  probably  die  a  natural  death,  save, 
perhaps,  in  the  great  cities.  The  University  of 
Moscow  has  ten  thousand  male  students,  its 
"courses"  are  attended  by  six  thousand  women. 
Consolidated,  they  would  make  an  institution  with 
sixteen  thousand  students !  But  who  wants  a  uni- 
versity with  sixteen  thousand  students  ?  The  log- 
ical thing  is  for  the  "courses"  to  become  a  state 
women's  university. 

In  our  high  institutions  of  learning  there  are 
about  half  as  many  women  as  men,  and  about  half 
as  many  receive  degrees.  In  Russia  the  numbers 
of  the  sexes  are  more  nearly  equal.  In  a  given 
year  there  will  be  about  fifty  thousand  women  stu- 


RUSSIAN  WOMEN  251 

dents,  and  between  sixty  and  seventy  thousand 
men  students.  About  ten  thousand  men  graduate 
annually,  and  between  five  and  six  thousand 
women. 

I  saw  something  of  the  girls  about  to  graduate 
from  gymnasia,  and  it  was  like  meeting  a  new  and 
higher  race  of  beings.  To  a  group  of  seniors  I 
pointed  out  how  unfortunate  it  would  be  if  the 
finest  young  women  gave  themselves  to  careers, 
leaving  only  the  second-best  to  hand  down  their 
heredity  to  their  children.  I  shall  not  forget  the 
noble  and  delicate  way  in  which  one  of  the  girls, 
after  a  moment's  hesitation,  referred,  in  English, 
to  the  young  martyrs  of  the  Russian  struggle  for 
liberty  "who  let  the  wife  and  mother  in  them  die 
in  order  to  render  a  supreme  service  to  their  peo- 
ple." These  gymnasium  seniors  were  highly  in- 
dividualized and  refreshingly  independent  in  man- 
ner of  thinking  and  expressing  themselves.  On 
their  animated,  intelligent  faces  sat  enthroned 
high  resolve.  In  earnestness,  perhaps  only  the 
best  third  of  our  girl  high-school  graduates  are  on 
their  level. 

In  this  connection,  however,  one  should  bear  in 
mind  two  things.  The  first  is  that,  owing  to  the 
tragic  sufferings  of  the  Russian  people  under  au- 
tocracy, Russian  students  generally  have  been 
more  deeply  stirred  and  take  a  more  serious  view 
of  life  than  do  American  students.  To  Russians 
who  attend  American  colleges  the  majority  of  our 
students  seem  shallow  and  frivolous.  In  America 
the  outlook  of  the  toiling  mass  has  been  so  much 


252  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

sunnier  than  abroad  that  many  of  our  students 
have  innocently  filled  their  free  time  with  ath- 
letics, fraternity  life,  and  "college  interests," 
who,  had  they  been  in  Eussia,  would  have  shared 
social  aims  and  spent  themselves  nobly  in  the 
cause  of  freedom. 

The  second  is  that  in  Eussia  gymnasium  and 
university  draw  from  the  same  constituency,  the 
rather  narrow  circle  of  intelligentsia.  Nearly  all 
who  attend  the  former  expect  to  go  to  the  latter. 
In  fact,  ninety-seven  per  cent,  of  the  boys  who 
graduate  go  on  to  higher  study.  On  the  other 
hand,  our  American  public  high  schools  are  really 
universities  of  the  people  and  draw  from  a  class 
ten  times  as  wide  as  that  which  is  able  to  send 
its  children  to  college.  It  is  not  to  be  expected 
that  our  high-school  graduates  should  compare 
well  with  those  issuing  from  Eussian  gymnasia, 
when  many  of  them  come  from  uneducated  parents 
and  bare  homes.  The  gymnasium,  too,  will  note 
a  falling  off  in  the  quality  of  its  product  when  it 
essays  the  familiar  role  of  the  American  public 
high  school. 

Like  the  French  wife,  the  Eussian  wife  is  a  good 
manager  and  knows  what  is  going  on  about  the 
place.  The  wife  of  the  landed  proprietor  regu- 
larly accompanies  her  husband  on  his  tour  of  in- 
spection about  the  estate,  but  domestic  she  is  not. 
German  women  have  developed  housekeeping  into 
a  fine  art,  so  that  a  woman  not  wholly  unambitious 
finds  something  satisfying  in  being  a  good  Haus- 
frau;  but  in  Eussia  it  is  otherwise.    Possibly  on 


A  Tiflis  type— half  Georgian,  half  Russian 


Haystacks  on  steep  meadows  near  Krestovi  Pass,  Caucasus 


RUSSIAN  WOMEN  253 

account  of  cheap  servants,  the  Russian  wife  is  not 
so  good  a  cook  and  housekeeper  as  the  American 
wife  in  similar  circumstances,  and  housekeeping 
has  little  attraction  for  the  rising  generation. 
One  cause  of  the  daughters  [  passion  for  education 
is  their  yearning  to  escape  from  the  gray  domestic 
round.  The  paying  job  outside  the  home  promises 
them  release  from  kitchen  bondage.  As  more  of 
them  gain  a  higher  education,  they  will  realize 
there  are  not  enough  careers  to  go  around,  and  will 
look  on  the  home  with  kindlier  eyes.  As  yet  there 
has  been  no  attempt  to  dignify  the  domestic  arts 
by  giving  them  a  place  in  the  curriculum  of  study 
for  girls,  nor  has  ''home  making"  been  idealized, 
as  it  has  been  successfully  idealized  among  us  in 
the  course  of  the  last  twenty  years. 

The  master  ideal  of  the  women  of  the  Russian 
intelligentsia  has  been  freedom  and  independence, 
and  Americans  of  both  sexes  long  resident  in  Pet- 
rograd  believe  they  have  realized  it  more  fully 
than  any  women  in  the  world.  Their  leaders  ad- 
mit they  have  now  no  unjust  discrimination  to 
complain  of  in  either  law  or  social  custom.  Con- 
ventions press  but  lightly  upon  them.  In  these 
days  of  costly  matches  a  young  lady  may  stop  you 
in  the  street  and  ask  for  the  loan  of  your  cigarette 
in  order  to  light  her  own.  The  one  foolish  conven- 
tion I  noticed  is  that  a  woman  must  never  be  seen 
outside  the  house  with  her  head  uncovered.  In 
one  form  or  another  the  kerchief  rules  all  classes, 
the  result  being  that  Russian  women  do  not  re- 
joice in  very  luxuriant  hair,  nor  do  their  tresses 


254  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

show  the  glint  and  sheen  that  come  from  going 
about  bareheaded. 

Among  the  peasants  patriarchalism  is  dying 
out,  owing  to  the  liberties  the  "patriarch"  per- 
mitted himself  in  respect  to  his  sons'  wives. 
Formerly  in  Russia,  as  elsewhere,  the  daughter's 
hand  was  bestowed  by  her  parents,  but  now  the 
girl  must  consent  to  the  parti  her  parents  have 
approved.  More  and  more  the  girl  is  wooed  di- 
rectly, the  gaining  of  parental  consent  being 
looked  upon  as  a  secondary  matter.  As  always 
happens  when  the  maiden  is  free,  money  consid- 
erations do  not  enter  much  into  marriage. 

No  finer  assertion  of  moral  personality  in 
daughters  has  been  witnessed  than  the  self -dedi- 
cation of  the  young  women  who  composed  the 
famous  "women's  battalion."  What  thoughtful 
man  could  watch  without  a  lump  in  his  throat  the 
drilling  of  its  awkward  squad,  the  lines  of  the 
girlish  figures  so  tender  and  unmartial,  the 
womanly  garb  so  little  suited  to  military  exer- 
cises !  The  Bolsheviki,  wisely  enough,  disbanded 
this  battalion.  Had  Amazonism  spread  along  the 
fronts  on  both  sides,  another  great  wing  of  our 
civilization  would  have  collapsed.  Think  of  the 
effect  upon  women  of  becoming  accustomed  to  the 
use  of  the  bayonet  and  upon  men  of  becoming 
habituated  to  deadly  hand-to-hand  combat  with 
women!  Then,  too,  the  example  of  these  female 
soldiers,  each  with  her  capsule  of  cyanide  of  potas- 
sium to  befriend  her  in  case  she  fell  into  the  hands 
of  the  enemy,  seems  to  have  been  quite  thrown 


RUSSIAN  WOMEN  255 

away  on  the  men  soldiers  they  hoped  to  shame 
into  fighting.  Nevertheless,  when  Russia  finds 
herself,  their  immortal  exploit  will  be  an  inspira- 
tion'to  all  patriots. 

The  spiritual  radiation  from  some  of  the  Rus- 
sian women  is  wonderful.  I  have  observed  plain- 
featured  middle-aged  women,  utter  strangers  to 
me,  who  seemed  to  move  in  an  aura  extending  some 
yards  about  them,  like  the  photosphere  of  an  arc- 
lamp  on  a  foggy  night.  The  radiance  of  this  aura 
is  I  suppose,  the  distance  at  which  one  can  read 
the  insight  and  wisdom  in  their  eyes,  the  cour- 
age and  good  will  in  their  faces.  But  while  the 
Russian  women  have  developed  rich  personality, 
they  seem  to  be,  on  the  whole,  less  socialized  than 
American  women  of  like  education.  In  the  last 
twenty  years  the  goal  the  latter  have  set  them- 
selves has  been  opportunity  for  service.  Russian 
women  are  far  less  organized  than  American 
women,  nor  have  they  found  so  many  ways  of 
serving  their  community  as  have  our  innumerable 
women's  clubs.  But  perhaps  they  will  never  go 
much  by  themselves,  for  they  have  come  in  "on 
the  ground  floor"  of  the  countless  occupational 
and  civic  associations  that  have  sprung  up  in  Rus- 
sia since  the  revolution.  It  may  be  their  destiny 
is  to  work  not  apart  from  men,  but  shoulder  to 
shoulder  with  them,  as  they  always  did  in  the 
secret  terrorist  organizations. 

Why  is  it  that  here  in  eastern  Europe,  next  door 
to  Asia,  the  theater  of  the  worst  male  ascendency  on 
the  globe,  the  physically  weaker  sex  has  through- 


256  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

out  the  enlightened  class  gained  a  freedom  not  yet 
realized  in  western  Europe,  or  even  in  the  United 
States?  Why  have  the  tillers  of  the  soil  and  the 
workers  in  the  mills  of  Russia  been  the  last  to  es- 
cape from  subjection,  while  her  women  have  been 
the  first  ?  One  wants  to  know  not  only  why  these 
women  have  been  more  demanding,  but  also  why 
their  men  folk  have  been  more  yielding.  Why 
should  Russian  fathers  recognize  sooner  than 
fathers  in  Germany  or  England  their  duty  to  give 
the  daughter  as  good  a  schooling  as  the  son? 
Why  did  wealthy  persons,  mostly  men,  give  gen- 
erously to  found  women's  universities,  in  order 
to  equalize  the  educational  opportunities  of  the 
sexes?  Why  did  the  men  of  the  Duma  last  spring 
bestow  upon  the  women  of  Russia  the  ballot  at  the 
same  time  and  on  the  same  terms  as  the  men? 

One  reason  is  that  men  do  not  hold  women  in 
subjection  from  the  same  motive  that  noblemen 
keep  peasants  in  serfdom  and  capitalists  withhold 
legal  and  political  rights  from  working-men. 
These  latter  are  intent  on  exploitation,  and  as  a 
class  exploiters  never  lose  their  taste  for  exploita- 
tion, never  relinquish  their  grip  until  forced  to  do 
so  by  resistance  from  their  victims  or  pressure 
from  other  classes  in  society.  On  the  other  hand, 
men  domineer  over  woman  not  so  much  in  order 
to  live  off  her  as  because  they  like  her  humble 
and  obedient.  But  their  cultural  development 
may  bring  them  to  a  point  where  they  weary  of 
the  odalisk  or  doll  and  long  for  a  creature  with 
a  richer  variety  of  reactions.    They  find  more  zest 


RUSSIAN  WOMEN  257 

in  wooing  the  charmer  than  in  buying  her,  in  per- 
suading the  wife  than  in  bulldozing  her.  The 
causes  of  the  emancipation  of  Russian  women 
should  be  sought,  therefore,  not  only  in  influences 
that  bore  on  the  women  themselves,  but  also  in 
thought  currents  that  affected  both  sexes. 

Among  the  former  should  be  reckoned  the 
schools  founded  more  than  a  century  ago  by  Maria 
Feodorovna,  wife  of  Paul,  the  mad  tsar,  and 
mother  of  Alexander  I.  Of  these,  perhaps  the 
most  famous  is  Smolni  Institute  in  Petrograd, 
which  became  the  headquarters  of  the  "  Central 
Executive  Committee' '  of  the  sovyets  and,  after 
the  revolution  in  November,  the  seat  of  the  Bol- 
shevik Government.  Thanks  to  these  opportuni- 
ties, certain  daughters  of  the  nobility  received, 
perhaps,  a  better  education  than  was  enjoyed  at 
that  time  by  any  girls  in  western  Europe.  About 
1858  the  wife  of  Alexander  II,  the  emancipator  of 
the  serfs,  founded  gymnasia  for  girls,  which  made 
it  possible  for  numerous  young  Russian  women 
to  reach  the  universities,  home  and  foreign,  in  time 
to  take  a  hand  in  the  political  struggle  of  the 
seventies. 

A  quite  independent  factor  was  the  influence  of 
European  thought.  Thanks  to  the  sentimental- 
ism  and  romanticism  of  the  late-eighteenth  and 
early-nineteenth  centuries,  writers  like  Karamzin 
and  Zukovsky  started  a  cult  of  women.  Then 
came  "advanced  ideas"  on  the  woman  question. 
The  St.  Simonists  and  George  Sand  had  a  rever- 
beration in  Russia.    Books  like  John  Stuart  Mill's 


258  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

" Subjection  of  Women"  were  translated  into 
Eussian,  and  great  writers  like  Turgenief  ("On 
the  Eve")  gave  wide  currency  to  their  ideas. 

Now,  such  thoughts  made  quicker  progress  in 
Russia  than  in  the  West,  because  here  they  had 
no  high  barriers  of  tradition  to  break  through. 
In  western  Europe  the  leading  social  class  was 
of  military  origin  and  bias,  and,  as  we  all  know, 
militarism  always  rates  women  low,  because  they 
are  no  good  for  fighting.  But  in  Russia  the  in- 
telligentsia were  not  militarist,  and  upon  them  the 
reasoned  plea  for  woman's  worth  and  possibilities 
had  the  effect  it  tends  to  produce  upon  minds  un- 
saturated with  prejudice.  In  fact,  owing  to  its 
mortification  at  the  backwardness  of  the  masses, 
this  element  has  always  accepted  advanced  thought 
at  par  value.  Some  years  ago  I  asked  the  great 
publicist  Ostrogorski  whether  the  Russian  liberals 
expected  Russia  to  pass  at  a  stride  from  autoc- 
racy to  republic. 

"Yes,"  he  replied,  "they  insist  on  having  the 
very  latest  style  in  democratic  institutions,  and 
are  terribly  afraid  of  having  yesterday's  fashions 
palmed  off  on  them. ' ' 

The  dogma  of  the  inferiority  of  the  female  sex 
seems  to  have  received  its  coup  de  grace  in  Russia 
in  the  course  of  the  desperate  and  bloody  struggle 
of  a  few  thousand  gallant  and  social-minded  revo- 
lutionaries with  the  mightiest  power  on  earth. 
In  this  amazing  duel  there  was  no  courage,  no  for- 
titude, no  self-devotion  shown  by  men  that  was 
not  exhibited  in  equal  degree  by  women.     The 


RUSSIAN  WOMEN  259 

heroism  of  a  Perovskaya,  a  Zassulitch,  a  Figner, 
and  a  Breshkovskaya  gave  a  new  measure  of  the 
moral  worth  of  the  female  sex.  During  this  epic 
combat  men  and  women  revolutionaries  fought 
side  by  side  without  a  thought  of  sex  difference, 
and  when  last  spring  the  surviving  exiles  and 
refugees  came  flooding  home,  no  one  had  the  ef- 
frontery to  proclaim  the  natural  political  unfitness 
of  women.  As  a  distinguished  thinker  put  it  to 
me,  "Together  men  and  women  were  slaves,  now 
together  they  are  free." 

Finally,  a  liberal  spirit  has  prevailed  with  re- 
gard to  woman's  aspirations,  because  in  a  country 
so  poor  in  intellectual  forces  as  Russia,  there  was 
room  and  to  spare  for  all  the  available  persons 
of  intelligence  and  training.  Qualified  women 
teachers,  doctors,  and  agronoms  were  made  wel- 
come, because  all  were  needed.  There  was  no 
outcry  against  the  presence  of  young  women  in 
the  university  or  professional  school,  because  they 
in  no  way  threatened  to  curtail  the  life  opportuni- 
ties of  the  men,  whereas  in  western  Europe,  and 
to  a  less  degree  in  the  United  States,  professional 
men  and  the  students  in  the  professional 
schools  feared  lest  the  competition  of  the  women 
should  lower  their  earnings  or  narrow  their  field 
of  employment. 

While  the  advancement  of  women  may  have 
reached  in  Russia  a  higher  peak  than  in  the 
United  States,  let  it  not  be  forgotten  that  in  the 
latter  country  the  movement  is  vastly  broader. 
With  us  it  is  affecting  the  lives  of  millions  of 


260  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

farmers*  wives  and  daughters,  whereas  in  rural 
Russia  the  women  are  regarded  and  treated  as 
peasant  women  elsewhere  are  regarded  and 
treated.  The  rural  population  has  been  untouched 
by  the  woman's  movement,  for  the  new  ideas  had 
no  access  to  their  minds.  Nevertheless,  the  plow- 
share of  war  has  torn  up  this  tough  sod  of  custom, 
so  that  the  peasant  women  have  come  to  realize 
that  their  lot  is  hard.  While  the  men  have  been 
with  the  colors  the  women  have  had  to  do  many 
things  it  was  supposed  only  men  could  do — fell 
trees,  build  log-cabins,  thatch  roofs,  cap  stacks, 
and  handle  stock.  As  a  result,  the  peasant  woman 
has  more  respect  for  herself,  and  her  man  has 
more  respect  for  her.  This,  taken  in  conjunc- 
tion with  the  great  strides  of  the  peasants 
in  the  direction  of  self-consciousness  and  organ- 
ization, makes  it  likely  that  the  near  future  will 
witness  a  rapid  diffusion  among  the  masses  of  the 
ideas  about  woman  which  have  come  to  prevail 
in  the  higher  classes. 


Women  vendors  at  railway  station 


A  Tarantass 


CHAPTER  XIII 
LABOR  AND  CAPITAL 

IT  was  late  in  a  December  evening  in  Petrograd, 
and  I  wanted  to  talk  with  my  friend  Symonds 
of  the  Associated  Press  about  the  raids  of  the 
Bolshevik  soldiers  on  private  wine  cellars.  Only 
a  few  minutes  before  I  had  met  strong  vinous 
fumes  pouring  from  the  broken  windows  under  a 
shop  and,  peering  down,  I  beheld  soldiers  moving 
about  with  lighted  matches.  The  racks  for  the 
bottles  were  empty,  while  the  floor  was  ankle  deep 
in  wine  and  broken  glass.  In  another  place  a  fire- 
hose led  from  a  cellar  window,  and  the  soldiers 
were  siphoning  the  wine  from  the  cellar  into  the 
manhole  of  the  sewer,  while  all  around  the  snow 
was  ruby.  "  Number  136,' '  said  the  room  clerk 
of  the  hotel  when  I  inquired  for  Symonds.  I 
rapped  on  the  door  of  the  room,  but  there  ap- 
peared not  my  friend,  but  a  brisk  elderly  gentle- 
man whose  name  was  Simmons. 

"Come  in,  anyhow,"  he  said  when  I  had  ex- 
plained the  mistake.  "My  daughter  and  I  have 
just  opened  a  bottle  of  wine,  and  I  was  wishing 
some  one  would  happen  along." 

It  came  out  that  he  is  an  American  of  Kentucky 
origin  who  has  lived  in  Petrograd  for  a  quarter 
of  a  century.    He  is  a  metallurgist  and  has  a 

263 


264  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

smelter  employing  fifty  men  where  slag  and  old 
metal  are  worked  up  into  new  forms.  Between 
sips  of  the  haute  Sauterne  he  ran  on  just  like  an 
old  English  squire. 

"No,  sir,  I  don't  know  what  we  are  coming  to, 
with  these  damned  Bolsheviks  on  top.  In  the  end 
they  '11  want  to  cut  the  throat  of  every  man  that 
wears  a  white  collar.  But,  then,  pshaw!  they 
won 't  last.  Two  months  1  I  won 't  give  them  two 
weeks.  What  will  turn  them  out,  you  ask  f  Why, 
sir,  the  aroused  intelligence  of  the  country.  You 
can 't  keep  matter  above  mind  for  long. 

"Yes,  I  have  a  fabrik,  and  my  men  love  me.  I 
pay  nearly  all  twelve  rubles  a  day,  and  there  's  not 
a  man  jack  of  the  lot  who  gets  less  than  two 
hundred  and  ten  rubles  a  month.  I  keep  track  of 
how  the  prices  of  things  go  up,  and  there  's  hardly 
a  fortnight  I  don't  add  something  to  their  wages. 
I  provide  my  work  people  with  lodging,  food, 
everything.  Their  interests  are  perfectly  safe  in 
my  hands.  Strike?  I  won't  allow  such  a  thing. 
If  a  man  does  n't  like  my  pay,  why,  let  him  look 
for  another  job,  say  I.  Here  's  the  way  I  handle 
the  kickers.  Five  weeks  ago  there  was  a  fellow 
by  the  name  of  Ivan  who  got  some  of  these 
Bolshevist  ideas  into  his  head.  When  at  a  quarter 
to  five  I  said,  "Now,  boys,  pour  the  lead,"  he 
looked  at  his  watch  and  said,  'We  pour  at  five 
o'clock.'  So  I  grabbed  him  by  the  collar, — 
just  like  this, — ran  him  into  the  office,  and  told 
my  daughter  here — she  's  my  cashier — to  pay 
him    what    was    coming    to    him    and    for    two 


LABOR  AND  CAPITAL  265 

weeks  besides.  But  that  fellow  wouldn't  sign 
the  pay-roll, — receipt  in  full,  you  know, — so  I  took 
him  by  the  scruff  of  the  neck,  rushed  him  down  the 
passageway,  and  at  the  door  gave  him  a  shove 
and  a  kick  that  landed  him  in  the  gutter.  He 
picked  himself  up  from  the  snow  and  went  into 
his  pocket  for  a  weapon;  but  I  whipped  out  my 
Browning,  and  he  scooted. 

"Next  day  Mitron — that  's  one  of  my  men — told 
me  he  had  it  from  Stepan  that  Ivan  was  swearing 
he  'd  get  level  with  me  some  night  when  I  came  out 
of  the  factory  door.  'All  right,'  I  said  to  Mitron, 
'you  tell  Stepan  to  pass  it  on  to  Ivan  that  if  I  see 
him  hanging  around  when  I  come  out  of  my  door 
I  '11  know  he  does  n  't  intend  any  good  to  me,  and 
I  '11  shoot  at  once.'  Do  you  want  to  know,  sir, 
what  that  fellow  did?  Four  days  later,  in  the 
forenoon — he  knows  I  'm  never  about  in  the  fore- 
noon— he  came  into  the  office  and  humbly  begged 
my  daughter  to  give  him  his  pay  and  asked  my 
forgiveness  for  having  treated  me  so  unjustly. 
He  said  he  was  going  back  to  his  village  now,  but 
when  the  war  is  over  he  'd  like  to  take  service 
with  me  again. 

"Yes,  I  know  how  to  handle  'em,  and  if  other 
employers  were  n  't  so  damned  chicken-hearted, 
they  wouldn't  have  so  much  trouble  with  their 
men.  I  won't  have  a  strike  in  my  factory.  If 
any  one  talks  Bolshevist  sentiments,  I  sack  him  at 
once,  and  my  men  understand  I  'm  their  best 
friend.  Owe  my  fortune  to  my  men  ?  Not  a  bit  of 
it.    My  fortune  all  came  out  of  my  brains,  sir. 


266  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

It  may  not  sound  well  for  me  to  say  it,  but  in  fact 
I  am  one  of  the  best  metallurgists  in  Russia.  No 
man  here  is  in  it  with  me  for  telling  whether  slag 
is  worth  melting  up.  Without  me  to  judge  the 
materials,  get  the  orders,  and  find  the  markets, 
where  d'ye  suppose  my  men  would  come  out? 

"But  what  is  this  bally  country  coming  to? 
They  came  to  my  place  the  other  day — I  've  got  a 
little  palace  of  my  own,  you  know;  I  keep  these 
rooms  only  for  convenience, — and  the  blackguards 
— they  call  themselves  'Red  Guards,'  but  black- 
guards is  my  name  for  them — took  my  best  blan- 
ket, pretending  it  was  needed  to  keep  some  soldier 
warm.  I  Ve  got  it  back  now,  but  it  cost  me  nearly 
five  hundred  rubles  to  trace  it,  though  I  bought  it 
in  the  end  for  thirty  rubles  in  the  thieves'  market. 
My  servants  tell  me  I  '11  get  killed  if  I  go  about  in 
the  streets  with  these  on"  (indicating  very  hand- 
some rings  on  his  little  fingers).  "They  're 
worth  five  or  six  thousand  rubles,  but  I  '11  never 
take  them  off.  Not  while  this  show  is  on.  Let 
them  kill  me  if  they  like.  I  'm  a  gentleman,  and  I 
am  going  to  live  like  one  till  the  end." 

It  was  like  listening  to  a  French  count  in  1792. 
The.  same  patronizing  feudal  attitude  toward 
"his"  people,  the  same  inability  to  imagine  the 
disappearance  of  the  old  order,  the  same  fatuous 
courage, — raising  an  umbrella  in  the  face  of  a 
tornado.    It  was  pathetic. 

Unlike  the  old  Ruric  dynasty  of  princes  of  Mus- 
covy, the  upstart  Romanofs  never  sided  with  the 
people,  but  stood  with  the  powerful.    It  was  under 


LABOR  AND  CAPITAL  267 

them  that  the  peasants  became  serfs,  and  in  the 
end  slaves.  When  factories  began  to  spring  up  in 
Russia,  the  Romanofs,  of  course,  became  accom- 
p)iices  of  the  capitalists  in  holding  workmen  down 
with  a  ruthlessness  long  since"  abandoned  in  west- 
ern Europe.  Unions  of  wage-earners  to  promote 
their  economic  interests  were  stamped  out.  Even 
when  some  employers  ^wanted  the  workmen  to  be 
given  the  right  to  organize,  in  order  that  there 
should  be  authorized  representatives  of  the  men 
with  whom  they  could  make  a  stable  agreement, 
the  Government  refused,  lest  such  organizations 
become  centers  of  political  movements.  The  Gov- 
ernment at  times  patronized  mutual-benefit  so- 
cieties among  wage-earners,  but  would  tolerate  no 
association  that  might  lessen  profits.  Nor  would 
it  allow  the  workmen  to  quit  work  in  concert. 
Forced  in  1905  to  recognize  their  right  to  strike, 
it  nullified  this  concession  when,  a  year  or  two 
later,  it  felt  itself  firm  again  in  the  saddle.  A 
strike  was  treated  as  a  seditious  outbreak  calling 
for  stern  measures.  Through  his  spies  among  the 
men  the  employer  would  learn  in  advance  the  day 
and  hour  of  the  walk-out  and,  when  the  strikers 
marched  out  of  the  works,  they  would  be  met  by 
gendarmes  or  Cossacks,  who  would  disperse  them 
with  clubs  and  whips 'and  throw  their  leaders  into 
jail,  if  they  did  not  send  them  to  the  front. 

The  orthodox  political  economists  used  to  insist 
that  supply  and  demand  determine  wages,  so  that 
unions  and  strikes  can  have  nothing  to  do  with  it. 
If  this  were  so,  Russian  working-men  lost  nothing 


268  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

by  being  denied  these  means.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
many  hundreds  of  millions  of  rubles  went  yearly 
to  the  employer  just  because  he  kept  out  of  their 
hands  such  weapons  as  union  and  strike.  In  1912, 
when  raw  immigrant  labor  commanded  $1.65  a  day 
in  the  industrial  centers  of  the  United  States,  this 
class  of  labor  was  paid  about  thirty  cents  a  day 
in  the  industrial  centers  of  southern  Russia.  I 
met  a  machinist  who  had  worked  all  over  southern 
Eussia  and  never  received  more  than  eighty-five 
cents  a  day.  In  the  United  States  he  began  at 
$2.75  a  day  and  during  five  years  never  received 
less.  After  allowing  for  a  slightly  higher  cost  of 
living  in  the  United  States,  and  bearing  in  mind 
that  employers  reckon  Eussian  skilled  labor  as 
twenty-five  or  thirty  per  cent,  less  efficient  than 
American  labor,  it  seems  safe  to  say  that  before 
the  revolution  the  share  of  his  product  that  fell  to 
the  Eussian  working-man  was  less  than  a  third  of 
that  received  by  the  American  wage-earner. 

Of  course  the  employer's  share  was  swelled  by 
just  so  much  as  he  kept  from  his  working-men; 
therefore  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  Eussian 
capitalists  netted  a  far  higher  profit  than  is  cus- 
tomary in  America.  I  talked  with  no  man  of  af- 
fairs who  did  not  judge  that  twenty  per  cent,  per 
annum  was  as  common  a  rate  of  profit  for  the 
Eussian  manufacturer  as  is  ten  per  cent,  for 
the  American  manufacturer.  The  hundred-ruble 
shares  of  industrial  companies  were  quoted  at  300, 
400,  and  even  up  to  1000  rubles,  indicating  an  ex- 
pected annual  earning  of  eighteen,  twenty-four, 


LABOR  AND  CAPITAL  269 

and,  in  cases,  up  to  sixty  per  cent.  While  such 
high  profits  are  partly  due  to  a  comparative  scarc- 
ity of  capital  in  Russia  in  relation  to  opportuni- 
ties for  its  profitable  investment,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  American  wage-earners,  armed  with 
the  legal  rights  to  organize  and  to  strike,  and 
equipped  with  the  intelligence  to  use  them,  have 
drawn  to  themselves  a  much  larger  fraction  of 
the  value  they  produce  than  the  Russian  employer 
yielded  to  his  ignorant  and  cowed  wage-slaves. 
In  a  word,  democracy — quite  apart  from  socialism 
— has  an  enormous  money  value  to  the  working 
class,  yet  the  Marxian  socialist  simply  lumps  it 
with  all  the  rest  as  "capitalistic." 

One  of  the  immediate  results  of  the  revolution 
was  the  birth  in  these  working-people  of  a  new 
sense  of  self-respect.  This  registered  itself  in  a 
striking  way  in  the  overthrow  of  the  tipping 
system.  In  nearly  all  restaurants  and  hotels 
the  servants  struck  for  and  attained  the  addition 
of  a  percentage,  usually  fifteen  per  cent.,  to  the 
patron's  bill,  this  to  be  divided  among  them  in  a 
stipulated  proportion.  Then  "No  Tip"  signs 
were  hung  up,  and  the  waiters  and  chambermaids 
firmly  declined  all  gratuities.  It  was  predicted 
that  the  quality  of  their  service  would  fall  off,  now 
that  the  patron's  contribution  was  fixed,  but  nc| 
such  result  appeared.  In  six  months  of  hotels  and 
restaurants  I  noted  no  loss  of  zeal  or  promptitude 
in  the  servants. 

The  new  spirit  made  war  on  the  extortion  of 
petty  graft,  which  like  a  fungus  had  spread  itself 


270  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

through  Russian  life  because  of  the  wretched  pay 
of  servants.  As  long  as  he  earned  only  three  dol- 
lars a  month,  the  shveitsdr,  or  house  janitor,  had 
to  levy  tribute  on  the  shop-keepers  supplying  his 
house,  as  well  as  exact  a  fee  from  every  family  in 
it.  The  policeman,  allowed  only  $6.75  a  month, 
was  obliged  to  bleed  all  he  could  intimidate.  The 
railway  servants  were  paid  so  little  that  they  had 
to  squeeze  gratuities  out  of  the  public  they  were 
bound  to  serve.  No  tip,  no  service ;  while  a  big  tip 
brought  unfair  preference.  Now,  since  the  revi- 
sion of  wage-schedules  that  came  in  the  wake  of 
the  revolution,  these  blackmailing  practices  are 
on  the  wane.  It  has  even  become  bad  form  to  at- 
tempt to  grease  the  wheels  with  a  bank-note.  The 
money  is  returned  with  the  remark,  "Things  can- 
not be  arranged  that  way  any  more.,, 

When  the  autocratic  machine  broke  down,  the 
masters  suddenly  found  themselves  without  any 
means  of  coercing  their  men.  Since  last  March 
there  has  been  no  civil  authority  in  Russia  compe- 
tent to  overawe  bodies  of  workmen  or  peasants. 
Bold,  indeed,  was  the  chief  of  police  who  would  act 
in  defiance  of  the  will  of  the  local  Council  of 
Workmen's  and  Soldiers'  Deputies.  Said  a  rep- 
resentative employer  bitterly : 

"The  kommissar  who  stands  for  the  Central 
Government  here  is  a  school-teacher  and  often 
calls  upon  us  to  yield  this  or  that  point  'in  the  in- 
terest of  public  order'  or  'to  avert  grave  disturb- 
ances.'   So  nowadays  we  don't  consider  what  are 


LABOR  AND  CAPITAL  271 

our  rights;  we  consider  only  how  to  avoid 
trouble." 

Facing  bodies  of  united  workmen,  sometimes 
with,  but  often  without,  the  support  of  their  office 
force,  the  managers  of  Russian  establishments  had 
to  dispense  with  their  familiar  means  of  exploita- 
tion and  content  themselves  with  what  they  could 
get  by  tact,  argument,  and  personal  influence.  If, 
after  all,  capital  fared  not  so  badly,  it  was  only 
owing  to  the  amazing  reasonableness  of  the  Rus- 
sian masses  when  they  are  not  under  the  spell  of 
the  crowd. 

Wages  were  pushed  up,  but  far  less  than  we 
were  led  to  believe.  American  periodicals  long 
put  the  demands  of  the  Russian  working-men  in  a 
false  light  by  figuring  the  ruble  at  its  old  value  of 
half  a  dollar.  Even  last  spring,  when  the  ad- 
vances began,  the  prices  of  necessaries  had  al- 
ready doubled  or  trebled,  and  since  then,  lifted 
by  a  constantly  increasing  volume  of  irredeemable 
paper  money,  the  cost  of  living  has  risen  so  fast 
that  it  is  doubtful  if  the  workmen's  pay  has  even 
kept  pace.  Many  employers  admit  that  wages 
have  not  gone  up  as  fast  as  prices.  A  big  em- 
ployer conceded  that,  although  the  wages  of  the 
seventy  thousand  laborers  in  the  Baku  oil  industry 
have  gone  up  460  per  cent,  since  the  beginning  of 
the  war,  the  rise  in  the  cost  of  living  has  been  still 
greater.  I  found,  indeed,  one  monumental  case 
of  wage  extortion  which  resounded  all  over  Rus- 
sia.   At  Tsaritzuin,  an  important  grain-shipping 


272  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

point  on  the  lower  Volga,  the  men  carrying  sacks 
between  wharf  and  vessel,  by  striking  on  every 
occasion  that  presented  itself,  had  screwed  their 
earnings  up  to  thirty-three  rubles  (say  six  dollars) 
for  a  six-hour  day  of  work.  When  I  was  there 
they  were  demanding  a  new  wage  scale  which 
would  yield  them  seventy-five  rubles  a  day ! 

Whether  or  not  the  laboring-class  as  a  whole 
got  a  better  living  in  1917,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
it  gave  far  less  for  what  it  received.  Within  four 
months  after  the  revolution  the  eight-hour  day 
was  installed  nearly  everywhere,  and  in  the  larger 
cities  office-workers  generally  got  their  working- 
day  down  to  six  hours.  Even  the  servant  girls 
caught  the  infection,  and  demanded  an  eight-hour 
day  and  certain  days  off.  One  man  had  humor 
enough  to  say  when  the  maid  asked  for  an  eight- 
hour  day  "like  the  factory  girls": 

"All  right.  Quit  at  four  in  the  afternoon  if 
you  like.  But  where  are  you  going  to  sleep  and 
eat?  If  you  are  to  have  the  same  hours  as  the 
factory  girls,  you  will  of  course  'find  yourself,' 
as  tbey  do." 

The  subject  was  dropped. 

Not  only  was  the  working-day  shorter,  but  often 
it  was  broken  in  on  by  tea-drinking,  smoking,  chat- 
ting, and  political  discussion.  When  they  felt  like 
it,  the  men  held  a  meeting  during  the  employer's 
time.  After  an  experience  of  being  rolled  out  of 
the  works  in  a  wheel-barrow,  the  foremen  were 
pretty  limp  and  said  nothing.  The  men  would 
leave  their  machines  to  talk  politics,  but  might 


LABOR  AND  CAPITAL  273 

scatter  hurriedly  to  their  places  if  the  boss  entered 
the  shop.  The  men  usually  required  a  time-wage 
to  be  substituted  for  a  piece-wage,  and  soon  there 
was  a  marked  fall  in  productivity.  In  July  the 
output  per  man  in  the  munition  factories  of  Pet- 
rograd  was  only  a  quarter  of  normal.  In  August 
General  Kornilof  told  the  Moscow  Political  Con- 
ference that  the  output  of  the  gun  and  shell  plants 
had  declined  sixty  per  cent,  as  compared  with  the 
last  three  months  under  the  old  regime,  and  that  of 
the  aeroplane  factories  eighty  per  cent.  In  Tsar- 
itzuin  the  output  of  the  cannon  factory  had  fallen 
off  seventy-five  per  cent. 

In  Petrograd,  Moscow  and  Nijni-Novgorod  the 
most  frequent  estimate  of  the  loss  of  productivity 
was  fifty  per  cent.  In  Saratof  a  labor  leader  esti- 
mated it  at  sixty  or  seventy  per  cent,  in  Septem- 
ber and  still  declining.  The  best  showing  was  that 
of  an  American  company  near  Moscow  which  by 
December  had  brought  production  back  to  seventy 
per  cent,  of  the  old  figure. 

The  labor  men  I  interviewed  frankly  admitted 
the  great  slump  in  productivity,  but  insisted  labor 
should  not  bear  all  the  blame.  Part  of  it  was  due 
to  the  gradual  deterioration  of  the  machinery  and 
to  the  growing  difficulty  of  obtaining  a  steady  sup- 
ply of  raw  materials.  This  last  was  exaggerated 
for,  pleading  shortage  of  raw  material,  some  fac- 
tory owners  were  planning  a  shut-down  in  order 
to  " bring  labor  to  its  senses."  So  far  as  the  men 
were  responsible,  it  was  only  a  natural  reaction 
from  the  forced  pace  formerly  exacted  of  them. 


274  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

In  some  cases  the  leaking  out  of  how  the  manufac- 
turers filling  government  contracts  on  liberal 
terms  had  secretly  received  subsidies  from  the  old 
regime  killed  the  laborer's  disposition  to  exert 
himself.  He  saw  his  employer  as  simply  an  arch- 
grafter. 

All  the  labor  and  socialist  spokesmen  agreed 
that  productivity  was  scandalously  low  and  were 
doing  their  utmost  to  raise  it.  In  some  factories 
the  workers  created  a  committee  to  quicken  the 
lazy.  The  slacker  was  twice  warned,  and  then,  if 
he  continued  on  low  gear,  they  let  the  employer 
sack  him.  In  a  big  government  arsenal  where  the 
men  had  substituted  their  own  managers  for  the 
harsh  and  grafting  generals  who  formerly  tyran- 
nized over  them  the  difference  in  activity  between 
the  repair-shop  on  time-work  and  the  machine- 
shops  on  piece-work  was  marked.  In  the  repair- 
shop  the  pace  was  easy,  and  at  a  given  moment  a 
third  of  the  men  would  be  passing  a  remark,  light- 
ing a  cigarette,  or  staring  at  us. 

The  employer  himself  could  do  little  to  speed  up 
his  men,  for  he  no  longer  possessed  the  power,  so 
dear  to  the  heart  of  the  American  manufacturer, 
to  "hire  and  fire."  The  working-men  had  soon 
perceived  the  necessity  of  protecting  their  spokes- 
men and  leaders  from  the  resentment  of  the  boss, 
and  by  the  end  of  1917  his  right  to  discharge  was 
generally  limited  by  the  veto  of  a  factory  commit- 
tee. Whether  or  not  this  restriction  protected  the 
shirker  or  bungler  in  his  job  depended  largely  on 
the  tact  pf  the  manager.    Two  Moscow  manufac- 


LABOR  AND  CAPITAL  275 

turers  were  comparing  their  experience.  The  cot- 
ton-mill man  threw  up  his  hands.  No  getting  on 
with  the  factory  committee ;  they  would  n  't  let  him 
fire  the  good-for-nothing  fellows.  Production  was 
away  down.  The  machine-shop  man,  on  the  other 
hand,  had  no  trouble.  When  he  saw  the  commit- 
tee about  discharging  a  certain  fellow,  he  stated 
his  case  to  them  in  language  they  could  under- 
stand, got  them  to  put  themselves  in  his  place. 
He  found  them  always  reasonable. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  Russian,  even  the 
illiterate  working-man,  is  one  of  the  most  reason- 
able beings  on  earth  if  some  one  he  trusts  ap- 
proaches him  the  right  way  and  has  patience. 
But  the  ease  of  recalling  one  factory  committee 
and  setting  up  another  puts  reason  at  a  constant 
disadvantage.  I  heard  of  a  committee  which  au- 
thorized the  discharge  of  a  workman  proved  to 
have  stolen  from  his  employer.  The  workmen 
promptly  elected  a  more  sympathetic  committee, 
which  stood  by  the  rascal.  Said  a  Volga  boat- 
builder:  "When  the  committee  begins  to  share 
my  views  about  efficiency  and  will  let  me  get  rid  of 
this  or  that  lazy  'comrade,'  the  workmen  get  to- 
gether, 'fire'  that  committee,  and  give  me  a  new 
and  a  more  radical  one  to  deal  with;  so  that  the 
process  of  educating  them  to  appreciate  produc- 
tivity has  to  begin  all  over  again." 

In  some  works,  if  the  elected  committee  fails 
to  reach  a  decision  as  to  a  man  the  boss  wants  to 
discharge,  the  question  is  referred  to  the  workmen 
in  his  department.    Obviously  the  grounds   on 


276  KUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

which  his  fellows  will  determine  his  fate  will  have 
little  to  do  with  his  real  worth  to  the  firm.  It  is 
safe  to  predict  that  any  board  which  is  to  prevent 
arbitrary  discharge,  yet  not  block  justifiable  dis- 
charge, will  have  to  have  some  permanency  and 
will  include  members  from  outside  the  establish- 
ment. 

It  takes  only  half  an  eye  to  see  that  with  limita- 
tion upon  his  power  to  "fire,"  the  employer  loses 
many  opportunities  to  snatch  an  advantage  from 
the  labor  situation  outside  his  factory.  If  hungry 
unemployed  are  walking  the  icy  pavement  he  can- 
not turn  off  good  men  in  order  to  take  them  on  at 
a  starvation  wage,  nor  can  he  intimidate  his  men 
into  accepting  a  needless  cut  in  wages  by  hinting 
at  such  replacement.  No  more  can  he  throw  com- 
petent workmen  into  the  street  in  order  to  sup- 
plant them  with  young  or  quicker  men,  nor  speed 
up  his  force  by  threatening  to  give  their  places  to 
the  job-seekers  clamoring  at  the  factory  gate.  In 
a  word,  while  competition  between  the  insiders  and 
outsiders  persists,  it  is  mercifully  dulled  for  them, 
as  it  already  is  for  most  of  us  who  are  fortunate 
enough  to  be  something  else  than  factory-workers. 

The  workmen  covet  a  voice  in  deciding  who  shall 
be  placed  on  the  pay-roll.  They  want  not  only 
to  protect  their  union  by  controlling  "fire,"  but 
also  to  extend  and  strengthen  it  by  controlling 
"hire."  Limit  the  employer  to  men  listed  by  the 
trade-union  or  by  the  factory  committee,  and  every 
seeker  of  work  will  have  to  join  the  organization. 
What  capitalists  may  be  called  upon  to  concede 


LABOR  AND  CAPITAL  277 

came  out  in  the  draft  of  a  collective  agreement 
presented  on  behalf  of  the  organized  men  to  the 
representatives  of  the  hundred  large  employing 
oil  firms  at  Baku.  Said  the  spokesman  of  the 
employers : 

They  ask  that  we  grant  leave  on  pay  for  a  certain 
period  to  a  sick  employee.  Most  of  us  are  doing  that 
already.  They  stipulate  that  on  dismissal  an  employee 
shall  receive  a  month's  pay  for  every  year  he  has  been 
in  our  service.  Agreed.  They  demand  that  no  work- 
man be  dismissed  without  the  consent  of  a  committee 
representing  the  men.  That  's  all  right.  They  require 
that  we  take  on  new  men  from  a  list  submitted  by  them. 
That  's  reasonable  enough.  They  know  far  better  than 
we  can  whether  or  not  a  fellow  is  safe  to  work  alongside 
of  in  a  dangerous  business  like  ours.  But  when  they 
demand  control  over  the  hiring  and  firing  of  all  our 
employees, — foremen,  superintendents,  and  managers  as 
well  as  workmen, — we  balk.  We  don't  see  how  we  can 
yield  that  point  without  losing  the  control  essential  to 
discipline  and  efficiency.  Yet  if  we  don't  sign  to-night, 
they  threaten  to  strike. 

They  did  strike,  and  they  won  the  point  at  issue. 

The  propertyless  wage-earner  who  without 
warning  has  been  thrown  out  of  his  job  runs  great 
risk.  In  immediate  need  of  something  to  support 
his  family,  the  skilled  worker  is  likely  to  drop  into 
the  ranks  of  common  labor,  from  which  it  may 
take  years  to  regain  his  old  standing.  The  un- 
skilled man  may  be  permanently  lowered  in  stand- 
ing or  morale  by  being  forced  to  tramp  or  beg  be- 
fore he  has  found  another  job.    Under  the  old 


278  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

regime  the  Russian  employer  was  legally  bound 
to  pay  his  dismissed  employee  wages  for  two 
weeks  beyond  the  term  of  employment.  It  was 
a  sop  to  the  workingmen  to  make  up  to  them  for 
not  having  the  right  to  strike  and,  of  course,  it 
was  valueless  under  the  tsar.'  Since  the  revolu- 
tion, however,  there  has  been  an  endeavor  to  en- 
force this  law  and  to  give  the  dismissed  workman 
a  legal  right  to  a  month 's  wages  instead  of  a  fort- 
night 's.  In  a  number  of  industries  the  month  of 
leeway  has  already  been  established  by  joint 
agreement.  In  the  typographic  industry  masters 
and  men  have  agreed  to  a  three  months'  minimum 
term  of  employment.  Some  groups  of  workers 
call  for  a  much  broader  margin  of  security.  As 
we  have  seen,  the  oil-men  demanded  and  secured  a 
month's  dismissal  pay  for  every  year  of  service. 
A  large  American  manufacturing  concern  was 
asked  by  its  men  to  pay  three  months'  dismissal 
wages  for  every  year  of  service.  On  the  break-up 
of  the  office  force  of  a  certain  American  life  insur- 
ance company,  the  men  put  in  a  claim  for  six 
months'  pay  all  around. 

The  by-effects  of  the  obligation  to  pay  a  reason- 
able dismissal  wage  are  altogether  admirable. 
The  employer  picks  his  man  more  carefully,  and 
as  soon  as  possible  determines  whether  or  not  he 
will  do.  Before  letting  him  go  with  a  present  of 
a  month's  wages,  the  employer  will  try  him  out  in 
different  positions  or  departments  in  the  hope  of 

I  finding  the  right  place  for  him.    It  may  even 
prove  worth  while  to  put  the  raw,  but  promising 


LABOR  AND  CAPITAL  279 

man  under  the  instruction  of  a  good  workman  un- 
til he  becomes  valuable  to  his  employer.  None  of 
the  recent  Russian  innovations  is  so  worthy  of 
prompt  adoption  by  us  as  the  legal  dismissal  wage. 
Nothing,  indeed,  sheds  such  a  light  on  the  negli- 
gibleness  of  the  wage-earner  in  American  society 
as  the  complacent  acquiescence  of  the  public  in  the 
barbarous  "hire  and  fire"  policy  characteristic 
of  our  industries. 

To  most  of  us  it  seems  reasonable  that  the  legal 
dismissal  wage  should  be  proportional,  in  a  degree 
at  least,  to  the  length  of  service.  If  the  worker  be- 
came entitled  to  a  day's  dismissal  wage  for  every 
twenty  days  he  had  held  the  job,  he  would  have  a 
fortnight  to  look  around  in  if  he  lost  his  job  at  the 
end  of  the  year,  a  month  after  two  years  of  serv- 
ice, three  months  after  six  years  of  service,  and  so 
on.  The  longer  he  had  made  good' in  his  place  the 
more  secure  he  would  feel,  for  the  more  it  would 
cost  his  employer  to  turn  him  off  without  fault  on 
his  part.  After  a  few  years  a  man  would  be  quite 
free  from  that  dread  of  finding  a  blue  slip  in  his 
pay-envelope,  which  now  embitters  life  for  a  myr- 
iad of  American  wage-earners.  How  whole-heart- 
edly a  man  will  toil  if  he  realizes  he  is  building 
about  his  job  a  wall  of  protection  which  will  sur- 
vive change  of  foremen  or  managers  or  owner- 
ship! 

The  Russian  socialists,  however,  will  have  noth- 
ing to  do  with  the  proportional  dismissal  wage 
for  fear  it  will  weaken  the  solidarity  of  the  work- 
ing-class.   After  a  man  had  held  his  job  a  few 


280  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

years,  they  contend,  he  would  arrive  at  such  a 
sense  of  security  that  he  would  lose  his  feeling  of 
identity  of  interest  with  the  rest  of  his  class. 
Many  of  the  best  workers  would  thus  acquire  the 
bourgeois  outlook  and  cease  to  struggle  to  wipe 
out  the  wage  system  entirely.  To  allow  sections 
of  the  working-class  elite  thus  to  become  easy  in 
their  minds  and  detached  in  lot  from  the  mass  of 
wage-earners  would  delay  or  make  doubtful  the 
political  triumph  of  the  proletariat. 

Other  benefits  some  groups  of  Eussian  working- 
people  have  sought  to  gain  by  means  of  their  new 
power  are  a  fixed  annual  vacation  of  two  or  four 
weeks  with  pay,  taken  at  a  time  convenient  to  the 
employee;  free  medical  and  hospital  treatment  not 
only  for  injuries  and  maladies  arising  out  of  the 
work,  but  for  all  illnesses  of  the  employee  or  of  his 
family;  and  the  continuance  of  wages  for  an  in- 
valid employee,  even  if  his  incapacitation  in  no 
way  arises  out  of  the  industry.  The  latter  two 
demands  testify  to  the  survival  of  the  autocratic 
idea  that  the  employer  should  be  a  1 1  father ' '  to  his 
people.  Many  of  the  Eussian  working-men  have 
yet  to  learn  that  the  citizens  of  a  democracy  should 
look  to  their  own  associations  or  to  their  com- 
munity for  help  in  certain  crises,  rather  than  to 
their  employer.  They  might  as  logically  call  upon 
their  employer  to  school  their  children  or  build 
their  churches  as  to  ask  him  to  doctor  their  fami- 
lies or  insure  them  against  accidents  that  befall 
them  when  off  duty. 

Naive,  indeed,  are  some  of  the  demands  made 


LABOR  AND  CAPITAL  281 

upon  the  employer.  The  force  of  one  company 
struck  and  afterward  asked  wages  for  the  time 
they  were  out  on  strike!  Another  employer  was 
called  upon  to  provide  his  men  with  revolvers  and 
rifles,  * '  so  that  they  might  be  ready  for  the  coun- 
ter-revolution.'  '  There  is  a  story  that  in  a  certain 
rubber-factory  the  workmen  figured  out  that  there 
should  be  coming  to  them  four  million  dollars  of 
back  pay.  The  women  stayed  up  all  night  making 
canvas  sacks,  and  next  day  the  men  appeared  in 
force  at  the  office  with  sacks  and  wheel-barrows 
demanding  their  four  million  dollars.  But  the 
five  directors  of  the  company,  having  gotten  wind 
of  what  was  coming,  had  placed  themselves  under 
the  protection  of  Kerensky  in  his  apartments  in 
the  Marinsky  Palace  and  had  induced  him  to 
send  to  the  factory  manager  a  statement  that  he 
held  them  in  custody.  The  manager  flashed  this 
statement  and  persuaded  the  workmen  to  return 
to  work  and  leave  it  to  Kerensky  to  make  the 
capitalists  disgorge.  In  a  few  days  the  directors 
ventured  home  and  the  works  went  on  as  if  noth- 
ing had  happened.  The  men  had  gotten  in- 
terested in  something  else. 

Considering  what  slavery  they  recently  escaped 
from,  one  should  not  marvel  that  wisdom  and  folly 
are  strangely  mingled  in  the  conduct  of  Russian 
wage-earners  since  the  revolution.  Some  of  the 
remedies  they  forced  to  a  trial  appear  to  be  suc- 
cessful and  will  spread  everywhere.  Others  work 
so  badly  that  even  their  sponsors  are  coming  to 
doubt    them.    For    months    the    less-thoughtful 


282  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

workers  have  lived  in  a  state  of  intoxication.  I 
use  the  word  advisedly,  for  again  and  again  edu- 
cated Eussians,  in  accounting  for  their  queer  be- 
havior, have  used  the  phrase  "  drunk  with  lib- 
erty. "  A  wise  old  lady,  the  skilful  manager  of  a 
huge  national  foundling  asylum  in  Moscow,  thus 
described  to  me  the  state  of  mind  of  the  servants : 

Among  our  hundreds  of  helpers  here  no  one  wants 
to  do  anything.  Formerly  one  cook  sufficed;  now  we 
must  have  five  other  cooks.  There  are  four  people  to 
look  after  the  lift,  yet  rarely  is  there  anybody  to  operate 
it  when  you  want  it.  Never  has  the  house  been  so  dirty 
and  ill  cared  for.  Never  has  it  been  so  hard  to  save 
our  children  from  actual  neglect.  They  are  all  mad, 
drunk  with  liberty,  and  they  think  liberty  is  not  doing 
anything  you  don't  like. 

This  is  why  the  leisure  gained  by  the  victory  of 
the  eight-hour  day  has  rarely  been  put  to  any  cul- 
tural use.  The  men  still  find  sweetness  in  doing 
nothing  during  the  hours  from  four  to  six,  when 
they  used  to  be  at  the  machines.  They  lie  about 
on  the  grass,  play  cards,  listen  to  speeches,  and 
indulge  in  horseplay.  The  impulse  to  plant  gar- 
dens, "fix  up"  about  the  home,  or  engage  in  seri- 
ous reading  or  study  will  hardly  appear  until  the 
first  deliciousness  of  idling  has  worn  off.  Such  is 
human  nature. 

Nor  is  it  surprising  that  old  mental  habits  break 
through  the  new  mood  and  cause  workmen  to  oscil- 
late in  bearing  between  truculence  and  servility. 
The  young  fellows,  of  course,  quickly  turn  into 
freemen,  but  the  older  blink  like  cave-dwellers 


LABOR  AND  CAPITAL  283 

brought  into  sunlight.  In  a  large  factory  the  bak- 
ers who  made  bread  for  the  company  stores  be- 
came very  obstreperous,  and  their  leader  came  up 
to  the  manager,  threatening  him  with  his  fists.  A 
few  days  later  he  slunk  into  the  office  crying,  and 
on  his  knees  besought  the  manager  for  money. 
The  manager  called  in  the  bakers  to  see  the  be- 
havior of  their  whilom  bullying  leader,  and  forth- 
with they  renounced  him  in  disgust.  The  old 
servile  cunning  will  betray  itself  in  a  great  out- 
burst of  malingering,  the  men  on  time-work  claim- 
ing some  ache  and  daily  crowding  the  hospital  in 
order  to  enjoy  a  rest  while  waiting  to  be  examined ; 
yet  these  men  have  the  hardihood  to  threaten  the 
doctor  with  personal  violence  in  case  he  reports 
there  is  nothing  the  matter  with  them. 

Taking  too  literally  "the  right  of  labor  to  the 
whole  produce, "  workers  have  ridden  their  man- 
ager out  of  the  works  in  a  wheel-barrow,  only  to 
implore  him  a  few  weeks  later  to  come  back  be- 
cause they  knew  not  where  to  buy  raw  material 
or  what  kinds  to  order.  One  manager  held  out 
till  he  was  let  back  with  complete  control  of  hiring 
and  firing.  There  have  been  managers  who 
walked  out,  leaving  the  men  to  run  the  plant  till 
they  realized  their  need  of  the  managers  and 
would  have  them  on  their  own  terms.  In  southern 
Russia  there  was  an  owner  who  quit  the  plant,  and 
the  men  joyfully  took  it  over  to  run  it  for  their 
own  benefit.  When  they  had  used  up  the  scanty 
supply  of  raw  material  on  hand,  they  began  to  sell 
machines  out  of  the  works  to  get  the  means  for 


284  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

buying  more,  and  when  they  had  the  raw  material, 
they  lacked  certain  machines  necessary  for  work- 
ing it  up. 

While  there  are  plenty  of  syndicalists  urging 
the  workmen  of  each  factory  to  organize,  cast  out 
the  owner  and  his  agents,  and  run  it  as  their  own, 
the  Bolsheviki  are  guilty  of  no  such  folly.  They 
see  clearly  that  such  methods  would  end  in  an- 
archy. .Whajt  they  aim  at  is  workers'  control  of 
industry.  In  some  matters  the  capitalist  will  be 
free,  in  others  bound  by  the  factory  committee, 
in  still  others  bound  by  rules  laid  down  by  local 
workers'  councils  or  the  central  authorities. 
After  the  Bolshevist  Eevolution  not  a  few  plants 
in  Moscow  came  under  workers'  management. 
Observers  say  that  they  run  along  from  day  to 
day,  but  make  no  plans  for  the  future.  They  re- 
senf as  interference  all  advice  from  intelligent  out- 
siders and  receive  with  suspicion  warnings  of  the 
hidden  rocks  in  the  course  of  business  manage- 
ment. Nor  do  they  appreciate  the  importance  to 
them  of  the  technical  man.  Unless  such  concerns 
are  soon  lit  up  by  modern  accounting  and  regu- 
lated by  central  boards,  not  enough  of  their  earn- 
ings will  be  laid  aside  for  repairs  and  deprecia- 
tion, so  that  when  the  factory  wears  out,  there  will 
be  no  money  to  replace  it.  Russian  economists 
agree  that,  while  the  principles  upon  which  state- 
managed  industry  may  succeed  are  known,  one 
cannot  expect  such  principles  to  be  followed  by  a 
Government  resting  immediately  on  the  Russian 
proletariat.    The     "control     of     workers     over 


LABOR  AND  CAPITAL  285 

factories' \  will  therefore  result  simply  in  the 
eventual  disappearance  of  the  capital. 

The  secret  of  the  unexampled  conquest  of  power 
in  Russia  by  the  working-class  lies  in  its  early  or- 
ganization. By  organizing  first,  it  gained  a  broad 
running  start  over  the  propertied  class,  and  now 
there  is  no  likelihood  of  the  bourgeoisie  overtak- 
ing it.  Anything  it  attempts  in  the  way  of  open 
and  comprehensive  organization  will  be  put  down 
by  force.  Following  Petrograd's  example,  and 
led  by  repatriated  exiles  and  refugees,  the  work- 
ing-people in  every  important  center  formed  a 
sovyet  of  delegates  chosen  by  groups  of  work- 
ers. For  instance,  to  the  sovyet  of  Nijni- 
Novgorod  a  delegate  may  be  sent  by  every  factory 
with  fifty  or  more  workmen.  The  big  concerns — 
there  is  one  with  twenty-five  thousand  employees 
— are  allowed  representation  for  every  five  hun- 
dred workmen  or  workwomen.  Any  fifty  persons 
in  the  same  craft  or  calling  may  come  together  and 
pick  their  delegate.  Any  class  of  employees — 
even  reporters,  bookkeepers,  and  bank  clerks — 
have  a  right  to  representation.  On  the  other 
hand,  doctors,  lawyers,  clergymen,  engineers, 
merchants,  capitalists,  and  landed  proprietors  are 
not  considered  as  belonging  to  the  proletariat. 
About  one  sixth  of  the  sovyet  is  composed  of 
deputies  named  by  the  various  proletarian  parties, 
Social  Revolutionists,  Social  Democrats  (Bolshe- 
viki  and  Mensheviki),  People-ists,  etc. 

The  soldiers  of  the  local  garrison  by  companies 
name  deputies  to  the  soldiers '  sovyet.    These  two 


286  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

sovyets  in  Nijni-Novgorod  maintain  a  joint  execu- 
tive committee,  composed  of  thirty  workmen  and 
twenty  soldiers,  which  meets,  perhaps  twice  a  week. 
Of  the  thirty  working-class  members,  perhaps 
twenty  give  their  entire  time,  and  are  paid  the 
equivalent  of  their  ordinary  wages.  They  form 
subcommittees  looking  after  conditions  of  work, 
disagreements  between  employer  and  employees, 
strike  adjustment,  employment  bureaus,  etc. 

Once  in  two  or  three  months  there  meets  in 
Petrograd  an  All-Russian  Congress  composed  of 
one  delegate  for  every  ten  thousand  workingmen, 
and  this  Congress,  in  cooperation  with  a  like  body 
representing  the  soldiers,  names  a  Central  Execu- 
tive Committee  of  250  members,  which  sits  almost 
continuously  in  Petrograd.  Since  the  incorpora- 
tion into  this  Committee  of  an  equal  number  of 
deputies  chosen  by  the  Peasants'  Congress,  it 
speaks  for  the  masses  as  no  other  agency  in  Rus- 
sia. It  is  this  body  which  now  constitutes  the 
supreme  governing  authority  of  nearly  a  hundred 
million  people. 

While  the  proletariat  was  thus  being  welded 
into  a  powerful  political  instrument,  the  bourgeoi- 
sie was  strangely  inert.  It  did  little  to  agitate  its 
ideas  before  the  public,  and  it  formed  no  compre- 
hensive organization.  As  the  working-class  be- 
came more  masterful  it  did  nothing  but  sit  behind 
locked  doors,  wring  its  hands,  and  disseminate 
malicious  lies  about  the  Bolsheviki.  It  is  true  the 
bourgeoisie  is  numerically  weak  in  Russia,  but  one 
cannot  imagine  the  employing  and  propertied  class 


LABOR  AND  CAPITAL  287 

in  the  United  States  thus  lying  down  in  the  face  of 
a  similar  crisis.  With  us  the  successful  include 
many  persons  of  farm  or  working-class  origin  who 
have  fought  their  way  up  and  have  unusual  force 
of  character.  In  Russia,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
able,  aggressive  son  of  a  peasant  or  mill-hand  had 
to  stay  with  his  class,  because  there  has  been  no 
public  school  to  open  to  him  the  doors  of  oppor- 
tunity. The  bourgeoisie  are  largely  the  children 
of  bourgeoisie.  Reared  in  an  easy  life,  they  are 
soft.  One  sees  it  in  their  horror  of  fresh  air,  of 
cold,  of  exercise,  of  early  rising,  of  long  hours  of 
work,  of  strenuous  exertion  of  body  and  mind. 
On  the  whole,  they  have  shown  themselves  self- 
indulgent,  timid,  and  ineffective,  and  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  the  robust  peasants  and  workmen 
have  little  fear  lest  the  bourgeoisie  wrest  the 
power  out  of  their  hands. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

RELIGION,  THE  CHURCH,  AND  THE 

SECTS 

ON"  a  main  corner  of  the  Nevskii  Prospeckt  in 
Petrograd  is  a  tiny  chapel  not  much  bigger 
than  a  kiosk.  In  this  place,  lined  with  ikons 
framed  in  gold,  priests  are  ever  on  duty,  intoning, 
chanting,  and  swinging  the  censer.  People  enter, 
uncover,  cross  themselves  repeatedly,  kneel,  pass 
from  ikon  to  ikon  kissing  the  glass  that  protects 
it,  and,  before  leaving,  light  candles,  which  they 
set  to  burn  before  their  favorite  image.  On  the 
street  or  in  the  tram-car  you  see  people  cross 
themselves  assiduously  when  they  pass  a  church 
or  go  by  a  shrine. 

The  ikon,  or  little  image  of  some  sacred  figure 
painted  in  the  dark  Byzantine  style,  is  omnipres- 
ent. In  every  hut,  living-room,  dining-room,  bed- 
chamber, school-room,  assembly  hall,  theater,  wait- 
ing-room, steamer  saloon,  and  shop  hangs  an  ikon. 
Even  the  workroom  in  the  factory  is  provided  with 
this  symbol.  In  Russia  Christianity  has  not  suf- 
fered from  lack  of  publicity  and  emphasis. 

The  burning  of  candles  as  an  act  of  worship  is 
general.  In  railway  waiting-rooms  I  have  seen 
candles  to  offer  before  the  ikon  for  sale  on  the 
confidence  plan.    You  drop  your  money  in  the 

288 


RELIGION  289 

slot,  and  help  yourself  to  a  ten,  twenty,  or  thirty 
copeck  candle.  Every  one  knows  that  a  stolen 
candle  would  bring  no  divine  favor. 

Before  one  of  the  gates  to  the  Inner  City  of 
Moscow  stands  the  shrine  of  the  most  holy  thing 
in  Russia,  the  famed  image  known  as  the  Iberian 
Virgin.  Formerly  no  man  passing  this  shrine 
failed  to  remove  his  hat.  Any  one  withholding 
this  mark  of  reverence  ran  the  risk  of  being 
mobbed.  But  last  summer  the  new  secular  spirit 
that  came  with  the  Revolution  made  itself  mani- 
fest in  an  increasing  number  of  persons  bold 
enough  not  to  uncover  on  passing  the  Virgin. 

The  piety  of  the  people  can  be  read  in  their 
fondness  for  religious  processions.  At  the  time 
of  the  " second  Easter"  I  was  in  Moscow  and  saw 
the  holy  day  celebrated  with  unusual  pomp  on  ac- 
count of  the  opening  of  the  Sobor.  In  the  Red 
Square  from  sixty  thousand  to  eighty  thousand 
people  stood  uncovered  in  the  sun  while  the  pro- 
cession formed  and  marched.  Continually  dele- 
gations of  priests  and  laymen  with  banners  ar- 
rived from  the  various  Moscow  churches  and  took 
their  places.  At  brief  intervals  the  mellow  Krem- 
lin bells  announced  the  advent  of  some  high  church 
dignitary.  Meantime  in  the  deep,  cavernous  gate 
sacred  singing  was  going  on.  About  noon  the  pro- 
cession started  to  issue  from  this  gate,  traverse 
the  huge  Red  Square,  and  reenter  the  Kremlin  by 
another  gate. 

Seven  hundred  gorgeous  banners,  each  borne  by 
one  man  and  steadied  by  two  others,  provide  the 


290  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

spectacular  feature  of  the  procession.  They  are 
of  all  shapes  and  designs,  some  rigid,  others  sway- 
ing. Many  are  of  plates  of  gold,  but  some  are  of 
rich  velvet  heavily  embroidered  with  gold  or  sil- 
ver thread.  In  the  center  they  carry  an  ikon  of 
Christ,  an  apostle  or  a  saint,  or  else  some  emblem, 
a  lamb,  a  dove,  or  a  cross.  The  moving  line  of 
shining  standards,  interspersed  with  robed  priests 
in  purple  hats,  with  bishops  and  metropolitans  in 
tiaras  and  mitres,  produce  an  indescribable  effect 
of  magnificence.  My  subconscious  thought  keeps 
looking  for  elephants  caparisoned  in  cloth  of  gold 
to  round  out  the  scene  and  complete  the  impres- 
sion of  Oriental  splendor. 

Unlike  the  shaven  Roman  Catholic,  the  Russian 
cleric  wears  a  full  beard  and  lets  his  hair  grow  to 
his  shoulders.  Some  have  superb  manes,  combed 
straight  back  from  the  forehead  and  falling  be- 
hind the  ears.  They  take  great  pride  in  these 
hirsute  adornments,  and  at  odd  moments  you  spy 
them  half-furtively  combing  themselves.  The 
high  dignitaries  are  generally  tall,  broad-shoul- 
dered men  with  majestic,  leonine  heads,  as  if  the 
church  utilized  only  the  finest  specimens  of  physi- 
cal manhood.  The  singing  and  responses  are  in 
the  most  sonorous  bass.  In  fine,  the  Russian  Or- 
thodox Church,  as  heir  of  Eastern  Christianity,  is 
a  masculine  institution,  reflecting  the  Oriental  con- 
tempt for  women  with  which  Byzantium  contami- 
nated the  religion  of  Jesus,  which  was  without 
sex  bias. 

The  church  interiors  of  Russia  are  probably  the 


The  Registan,  Samarcand 


The  Study  of  Theology 


Baku 


~*v 


*f 


The  tombs  ot  Bokhara 


RELIGION  291 

most  heart-lifting  and  mystical  interiors  of  the 
kind  in  tbe  world.  The  eye  meets  not  the  cold 
gray  of  stone,  but  the  warm  tints  of  immense 
frescos  of  scenes  from  the  Bible  or  the  lives  of  the 
saints.  No  garish  day  is  admitted  to  chase  away 
the  mysterious  shadows,  but  a  forest  of  candles 
illumines  the  tall  ikonostas,  while,  high  above  all, 
golden  shafts  of  sunlight  strike  across  the  blue 
incense  smoke.  No  organ  music  rolls  away  under 
the  arches  and  domes,  but  only  human  voices, 
sonorous  responses  and  glorious  bursts  of  singing 
from  splendid  male  choirs.  The  pavement  is  un- 
broken by  pews  or  chairs.  The  throng  stands, 
and  it  is  a  fluid,  animated  throng,  worshipers  ar- 
riving, leaving,  pushing  their  way  toward  the 
altar,  edging  their  way  out ;  passing  up  candles  to 
be  lighted ;  hearkening,  meditating,  praying,  kneel- 
ing, prostrating  themselves,  each  engaging  in  his 
private  devotions  without  the  least  trace  of  self- 
consciousness.  Rich  and  poor,  sleek  and  rough, 
trim  and  unshorn,  tailored  and  tattered,  jostle 
without  impatience  or  irritation  in  that  strange 
order  without  prearrangement  that  is  so  Russian. 
What  good  does  it  all  do?  The  worship  is 
ritual,  and  the  sermon  has  no  necessary  place  in 
it.  The  Lutheran  pastors  in  Russia  generally 
look  upon  Orthodoxy  as  a  religion  of  outward 
forms  that  is  quite  empty  of  the  religious  spirit 
and  has  no  moral  ideal  to  communicate.  It  has 
been  merely  a  section  of  the  tsar's  police,  and 
with  the  withdrawal  of  state  support  it  will  col- 
lapse.   Said  a  German  Catholic  bishop:    "The 


292  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

Orthodox  Church  has  allowed  ceremony  to  become 
almost  the  whole  of  religion.  She  makes  little 
use  of  the  sermon  and  gives  the  faithful  scant  in- 
struction of  any  kind.  Her  low  vitality  is  attested 
by  the  fact  that  she  maintains  only  two  foreign 
missions — in  Tokio  and  Peking.  Her  activity  in 
Palestine  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  Holy  Sepul- 
cher  is  the  very  crown  of  her  ikon  system,  and  she 
is  solicitous  to  protect  her  pilgrims  thither. ' '  Nor 
does  she  justify  her  existence  by  maintaining 
philanthropies.  An  American  social  worker  en- 
gaged in  helping  the  Russians  out  of  their  difficul- 
ties observed:  "At  home  we  never  form  a  relief 
committee  without  including  clergymen.  In  many 
conferences  here  for  creating  the  machinery  for 
relief  no  one  has  ever  even  suggested  a  priest  or 
bishop  as  a  worth-while  member.  This  church 
has  regarded  social  service  as  no  more  a  part  of 
its  job  than  polar  exploration." 

It  is  said  that  the  Russian  priest  has  not  even 
a  strong  position  with  respect  to  the  morals  of 
his  flock.  If  he  rebukes  a  parishioner  for  steal- 
ing away  another's  wife,  as  likely  as  not  the  man 
will  reply :  ' '  Little  Father,  that  is  no  business  of 
yours.  Stick  to  your  job."  In  other  words,  he 
is  looked  upon  as  expert  performer  of  certain  cere- 
monies of  a  mysterious  efficacy,  but  not  as  censor 
of  life  and  conduct. 

If,  then,  the  Russian  Church  neither  enlightens 
nor  guides  nor  serves  its  people,  what  is  it  good 
for?  Should  it  not,  like  the  barren  fruit-tree,  be 
cut  down  and  cast  into  the  fire? 


RELIGION  293 

Still,  Russian  Christianity  is  very  far  from 
being  an  empty  form.  By  a  hundred  tokens  the 
people  manifest  genuine  Christian  spirit.  Early 
in  the  war  peasants  would  give  all  their  stock  of 
food  to  the  passing  Polish  or  Jewish  refugees. 
The  millions  who  fled  into  Russia  from  the  prov- 
inces occupied  by  the  Germans  met  with  wonder- 
ful kindness  and  generosity.  The  multitude  of 
beggars  in  Russia  testifies  to  the  open-heartedness 
of  the  public.  A  Russian  writer,  Rosanof,  asks: 
"Is  there  one  page  in  the  whole  of  Russian  litera- 
ture where  mock  is  made  of  a  girl  who  has  been 
betrayed,  of  a  child,  of  a  mother,  of  poverty? 
Even  the  thief  is  an  honest  thief  [Dostoyevsky's 
'Honest  Thief'].  Russian  literature  is  one  con- 
tinuous hymn  to  the  injured  and  insulted." 

In  Russia  there  is  no  legal  restriction  on  beg- 
ging, and  last  winter  hundreds  of  beggars  hung 
about  the  streets,  churches,  and  railroad  stations, 
some  sensationally  deformed  or  mutilated.  No 
doubt  many  of  them  are  impostors,  but  no  investi- 
gation has  ever  been  made  to  establish  what  pro- 
portion are  unworthy.  No  organization  exists  to 
inquire  into  beggars  and  part  the  goats  from  the 
sheep.  The  Russian  public  gives  and  gives,  not 
in  the  least  disturbed  by  the  reflection  that  un- 
doubtedly the  bulk  of  the  recipients  are  humbugs. 
The  Russian  sees  himself  and  the  beggar  as  two 
persons,  each  with  his  responsibility  to  God.  The 
impostor  will  answer  hereafter  for  his  deception. 
In  any  case,  God  sees  and  blesses  the  alms,  so  that 
the  giver 's  purpose  is  not  defeated  by  the  fact  that 


294  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

the  alms  are  wasted.  It  has  never  occurred  to  the 
Russian  that  there  is  a  social  aspect  to  mistaken 
charity,  that  indiscriminate  almsgiving  lures  peo- 
ple into  professional  begging,  that  the  shut-eye 
giver  tempts  persons  to  abandon  an  honest  way 
of  life  in  order  to  impose  on  the  charitable  public. 
The  purely  religious  aspect  of  almsgiving  so 
obsesses  the  Russian's  mind  that  its  wastefulness, 
nay,  even  its  positive  harmfulness  to  society,  are 
ignored. 

Although  monasteries  are  dying  a  natural  death 
because  of  less  inclination  to  take  vows,  the  reli- 
gious life  is  still  deliberately  chosen.  I  heard  of 
a  colonel  who  turned  monk  and  became  celebrated 
for  the  strictness  of  his  seclusion.  Such  a  one,  if 
he  is  wise  and  shrewd,  is  much  resorted  to  by  the 
plain  people,  and  after  his  death  wonders  will  be 
worked  at  his  cell.  In  fact  thousands  of  "  mira- 
cles' '  occur  every  year  at  the  sacred  shrines.  Fif- 
teen leagues  from  Moscow  lies  the  Troitzko- 
Sergievskaya  Lavra,  the  richest  monastery  in  all 
Russia,  in  a  town  which  not  long  ago  had  more 
vodka  shops  than  any  other  city  of  its  size.  But 
while  the  younger  monks  of  such  monasteries  seem 
to  have  been  attracted  chiefly  by  the  prospect  of 
good  eating  and  an  idle  life,  in  the  poorer  convents 
the  monks  still  are  sincere.  Only  a  few  miles, 
perhaps,  from  the  rich  lavra  a  lonely  monastery 
in  the  woods  may  shelter  a  handful  of  monks  quite 
saintly  in  their  manner  of  life. 

The  key  to  the  paradox  I  have  described  is 
that  the  Russian  Church,  unlike  our  Protestant 


EELIGION  295 

churches,  strives  neither  to  instruct  nor  to  bring 
about  will  attitudes.  The  latter,  addressing  the 
thought  and  conscience  of  the  believer,  aim  to 
make  his  conduct  conform  to  a  norm  or  ideal. 
But  Orthodoxy  aims  to  work  upon  the  feelings. 
Its  ikons  and  processions,  splendid  altars  and 
glorious  singing,  noble  beards  and  gorgeous  vest- 
ments, really  stir  emotion  and  result  in  the  be- 
havior which  flows  from  the  specific  Christian  im- 
pulses of  compassion  and  charity.  One  has  only 
to  watch  the  faces  during  worship  to  realize  that 
we  are  a  long  way  from  the  dry  formalism  of  the 
Taoist  temple. 

The  religiousness  of  the  peasants  does  not  come 
from  the  sermons  they  hear,  for  these  are  not  in- 
spiring nor  are  they  an  outstanding  feature  of  wor- 
ship. It  does  not  come  from  Bible-reading,  for 
most  of  them  cannot  read.  It  is  inspired  by  the 
ritual,  which  is  full  of  noble  passages  from  the 
Scriptures,  uplifting  prayers,  and  hymns.  The 
touching  aspect  of  the  church's  observances  is 
seen  in  the  Passion  services,  in  which  a  sheet  on 
which  the  figure  of  Christ  is  portrayed  is  laid  in 
a  coffin  and  the  funeral  ceremony  is  gone  through 
with.  Three  times  at  midnight  the  coffin  is  borne 
about  the  church,  and  then  the  bells  begin  to  ring, 
and  general  rejoicing  welcomes  the  news,  ' '  Christ 
is  risen."  Thus  the  figure  of  Christ  is  made  cen- 
tral, and  true  and  deep  religious  emotion  is 
aroused. 

Said  an  American  Y.  M.  C.  A.  leader  after  many 
years '  work  in  Russia :    ■ '  The  crossings,  bowings, 


296  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

and  candles  are  substitutes  not  for  Christian  con- 
duct, but  for  the  singing,  praying,  testimony,  and 
like  devotional  exercises  of  the  American  Protes- 
tant. Where  the  latter  says  something,  the 
former  does  something.  His  acts  are  probably  no 
oftener  empty  than  are  the  words  of  the  Protes- 
tant. Ordinarily  religious  feeling  is  back  of  them 
in  both  cases." 

In  doctrine  and  ritual  the  Russian  Church 
stands  nearer  to  the  great  councils  of  the  fifth  to 
the  seventh  century  than  to  any  other  extant  form 
of  Christianity.  It  has  stood  still  at  about  the 
point  the  Christian  Church  had  reached  at  the  time 
of  the  great  schism  between  Roman  Catholic  and 
Greek  Catholic.  The  Orthodox  insist  that  theirs 
is  an  uncorrupted  Christianity,  and  think  that  if 
Luther  had  known  Orthodoxy  he  would  not  have 
found  it  necessary  to  found  Protestantism.  They 
do  not  appreciate  the  necessity  of  going  still  fur- 
ther back,  from  the  writings  of  John  of  Damascus 
to  the  Gospels. 

The  worship  is  full  of  symbolisms  which  are 
understood  by  the  initiated,  but  from  which  the 
masses  get  little  but  vague  ideas,  coupled  with 
emotion,  so  that  they  develop  a  taste  for  mysti- 
cism. Some  reformers,  recognizing  that  uninter- 
preted symbolism  becomes  empty  form,  wish  to 
see  the  ceremonies  curtailed  and  simplified,  so 
that  greater  prominence  may  be  given  the  sermon. 
Hitherto  this  feature  has  been  kept  from  develop- 
ing by  the  requirement  under  the  old  regime 
that  the  sermon  should  be  censored  in  advance. 


RELIGION  297 

Others  declare  it  is  vain  to  look  for  any  reform 
of  a  ritual  so  ancient  and  sacred,  and  urge  that 
the  faithful  be  instructed  as  to  the  meaning  of  its 
symbolisms. 

The  Orthodox  Church  is  not  clerical  and  hence 
it  has  never  aroused  against  itself  anti-clericalism. 
It  has  not  aspired  to  control  politics,  has  never 
become  an  anti-civic  ecclesiastical  machine.  It 
has  made  no  effort  to  keep  the  Bible  from  the  peo- 
ple, although  it  does  not  stimulate  Bible  study  as 
do  the  sects. 

Compared  with  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  it 
is  weak  in  organization.  The  discipline  of  the 
priests  has  been  lax,  and  in  vodka  days  too  often 
the  village  deacon  or  even  the  priest  was  a  drunk- 
ard. Along  with  ecclesiastics  the  consistory  in- 
cluded civil  servants  and  officials,  who  gave  it  a 
secular  spirit.  Hence  in  the  priest  political  sound- 
ness counted  for  more  than  purity  of  character, 
and  the  dissolute  priest  who  was  a  vigilant  in- 
former kept  his  frock.  As  for  the  bishop,  he  had 
little  security  of  tenure.  In  disfavor  he  might 
be  deprived  of  his  diocese  and  sent  to  live  on  a 
modest  pension  in  a  remote  monastery.  Thus 
the  religious  heads  were  made  subservient  to  their 
master,  the  lay  ooerprocuror  of  the  Holy  Synod, 
who  was  a  member  of  the  ministry  and  the  instru- 
ment by  which  the  church  was  made  subject  to  the 
state.  Under  the  famed  oberprocuror  Probyedo- 
nostsef  the  church  endured  a  quarter-century  of 
slavery  to  a  little  homely,  very  clever  man  of  the 
Torquemada  type.    All  its  dignitaries  feared  and 


298  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

courted  him,  for  he  resented  any  opposition  or 
lack  of  deference  to  himself.  It  was  this  state 
gag  which  made  the  church  silent  regarding  the 
Easputin  imposture.  One  rugged  bishop  who 
protested  to  the  tsar  against  the  rogue  was  exiled 
to  a  monastery.  On  the  other  hand,  the  metro- 
politan of  Petrograd  became  Rasputin's  cham- 
pion and  right-hand  man. 

Pobyedonostsef  is  always  likened  by  Russians  to 
a  Dostoyevsky  character,  ''The  Grand  Inquisi- 
tor,'' who  deprived  heretics  of  this  life  in  order 
to  save  them  in  the  next.  He  assumed  that  people 
would  not  remain  in  the  Christian  fold  unless 
forced.  Hence  the  state  strongly  backed  up  Or- 
thodoxy. The  Orthodox  parent  who  did  not  pre- 
sent his  child  for  baptism  would  be  fined  or  im- 
prisoned. An  unbaptized  child  would  not  be 
received  into  any  school.  The  Jews,  Lutherans, 
Germans,  and  Finns,  Catholic  Poles,  Armenians, 
and  Mohammedans  were  allowed  their  worship, 
but  woe  to  them  if  they  sought  to  propagate  their 
doctrines  in  the  Russian  language,  whereas  the 
Orthodox  might  proselytize  as  they  pleased. 

As  the  hatred  for  tsarism  grew,  the  captivity 
of  the  church  to  this  abomination  had  a  deplorable 
effect  upon  the  faith  of  the  people.  The  educated 
have  become  alienated  from  the  church,  and  in 
recent  years  there  has  been  a  great  falling  off  in 
church  attendance.  After  the  Revolution  it  was 
felt  that  something  radical  must  be  done  to  re- 
store to  the  church  its  spiritual  character ;  so  last 
August  there  was  convened  in  Moscow  a  grand 


Religious  fanatics,  Bokhara 


'~- -.aat 

n 

. 

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'   £* 

'!SS 

^Mb   ^^    ^I^bK                  .^^ 

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V 


■ 


Howling  Dervishes,  Bokhara 


Russian  woman  convict — whose  only  offence  was  the  enlightenment- 
and  elevation  of  the  poor 


RELIGION  301 

Sob  or,  or  Council,  the  first  since  1668.  After 
months  of  deliberation  this  imposing  body  of  555 
members,  more  than  half  of  them  laymen,  decided 
for  the  entire  independence  of  the  church,  the 
abolition  of  the  Holy  Synod,  and  the  revival  of 
the  patriarchate  suppressed  by  Peter  the  Great. 
Thereupon  the  Metropolitan  of  Moscow  was  sol- 
emnly made  Patriarch,  and  the  Russian  Orthodox 
Church  has  a  visible  head  again. 

The  withdrawal  of  state  aid  and  the  nationaliza- 
tion of  church  and  monastery  lands  by  the  Sovyet 
Government  are  heavy  blows,  and  many  doubt  if 
the  church  will  be  able  to  survive.  The  peasants 
have  never  formed  the  habit  of  contributing  to 
the  support  of  the  priest.  His  income  has  come 
from  various  sources — a  small  state  stipend  of 
from  $75  to  $150  a  year,  the  yield  of  a  bit  of  glebe 
land,  certain  collections,  and  the  fees  derived  from 
baptisms,  weddings,  and  funerals.  Without  a 
salary  and  perhaps  unprovided  for  in  the  new 
land  settlement,  the  village  priest  faces  a  dark 
future. 

While  the  Russian  Revolution  has  occasioned, 
as  did  the  French  Revolution,  a  great  set-back  to 
the  church,  no  doubt  religion  will  survive  the 
Bolsheviki  as  it  did  the  Jacobins.  Now  that  there 
is  religious  freedom  and  dissenters  enjoy  full  lib- 
erty to  propagate  their  doctrines,  we  may  witness 
a  great  expansion  of  sects  at  the  expense  of  the 
church.  Owing  to  the  little  culture  of  the  masses, 
the  Russians  are  still  in  the  sect-forming  stage,  as 
were  the  Americans  a  century  ago.    As  we  devel- 


302  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

oped  Shakers  and  Free  Methodists,  Mormons  and 
Holy  Rollers,  they  have  Khlysti  and  Skoptsi  and 
Filipovtsi,  mystical,  ecstatic,  and  sometimes  alto- 
gether mad.  There  is  nothing  in  our  camp-meet- 
ing revivals  which  cannot  be  matched  among  these 
Russian  sects.  Then  there  are  Baptists,  Molo- 
kans,  Doukhobors,  and  Evangelical  Christians, 
who  abjure  ikons  and  ceremonies  in  order  to  live 
what  they  believe  is  the  Christian  life. 

It  is  strange  that  while  instability  is  so  common 
a  failing  that  there  is  a  saying,  "The  Russian 
character  consists  in  having  no  character,"  the 
sects  are  known  for  their  strength  of  character. 
Thus  the  greatest  body  outside  the  church,  the  Old 
Believers,  have  the  reputation  of  Scotch  Cove- 
nanters. The  Cossacks,  who  kept  their  military 
virtue  long  after  the  other  troops  had  become  a 
mob,  are  in  large  part  Old  Believers.  Some  even 
say,  "When  a  Russian  works  hard,  you  may  be 
sure  he  is  not  Orthodox,  but  a  member  of  one  of 
the  sects. ' '  This  and  their  emphasis  on  morals — 
non-drinking,  non-smoking,  etc. — account  for  the 
remarkable  prosperity  of  the  sectaries  when  they 
are  not  hounded.  When  Minister  Witte  was  look- 
ing about  for  settlers  for  Manchuria  and  the  Liao 
Tung  peninsula,  he  insisted  on  having  the  sec- 
taries because  of  their  sterling  qualities. 

The  cause  of  this  superiority  seems  not  to  be 
the  special  doctrines  of  the  sect,  but  the  bracing 
effect  of  having  to  stand  alone.  Even  where  the 
notions  of  a  sect  are  altogether  eccentric,  like 
those    of    the    Skoptsi,    who    make    themselves 


RELIGION  303 

eunuchs  "for  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven's  sake," 
its  members  show  strength  of  character.  Now 
that  these  sects,  wise  and  foolish  together,  have 
perfect  liberty  to  work  upon  the  unsophisticated 
Orthodox,  who  may  soon  be  wandering  about  like 
sheep  without  a  shepherd,  the  religious  develop- 
ments in  Russia  ought  to  be  rapid,  varied,  and 
interesting. 


CHAPTER  XV 
THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  RUSSIA 

IN  the  oasis  of  Merv  in  Turkestan  lies  the 
Murghab  demesne,  created  to  be  a  milch  cow 
for  the  tsar,  but  now  the  property  of  the  Russian 
state.  The  Murghab,  sliding  from  the  Afghan 
hills,  has  been  caught,  split,  and  led  till  more  than 
a  quarter  of  a  million  acres  of  gray  desert  smiles 
to  its  vitalizing  touch.  In  all  central  Asia,  per- 
haps, there  is  no  more  motley  population  than  has 
come  together  on  this  manor.  Tekke  Turcomans 
there  are,  also  Afghans,  Beloochis,  Persians,  Kir- 
ghiz, Sarts,  Arabs,  Hindoos,  and  Chinese  from 
Sungaria,  besides  a  few  Russians.  The  Kommis- 
sar  set  over  them  last  April  by  the  Provisional 
Government  was,  but  two  short  years  ago,  a  stu- 
dent of  chemistry  in  the  University  of  Dorpat. 
On  reaching  eighteen  he  began  his  military  service 
and  soon  found  himself  in  command  of  three  hun- 
dred men  digging  trenches.  Now  at  twenty  this 
tall,  handsome,  fair-haired  youth,  with  the  figure 
of  a  Hermes,  the  eyes  of  a  woman,  and  the  soul  of 
a  poet,  is  "little  father"  to  some  eighteen  thou- 
sand souls. 

His  chief  care  is  to  hold  in  check  the  robbers, 
who  give  increasing  trouble  as  the  pinch  from  the 

304 


THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  RUSSIA     305 

protracted  drought  becomes  sharper.  The  fall  of 
the  ruble  has  obliged  him  to  cut  down  his  police 
force  from  sixty  men  to  twenty-five  and  to  assume 
himself  the  role  of  constable  as  well  as  judge.  Let 
word  come  in  of  a  night  foray,  and  he  is  in  the 
saddle  by  sun-up,  guiding  his  men  by  the  distant 
moving  column  of  dust  that  marks  the  furious 
flight  of  the  robbers.  His  cupboards  are  full  of 
wicked-looking  pistols,  muskets,  daggers,  and 
scimitars  taken  from  bandits  he  has  tried  and  sen- 
tenced. Each  is  ticketed  in  order  that  it  may  be 
returned  to  the  owner  on  his  release  from  prison ; 
for  so  recently  was  this  a  land  of  sudden  death 
that  lethal  weapons  still  count  among  the  legiti- 
mate necessaries  of  life ! 

Besides  criminal  questions,  all  sorts  of  troubles 
from  boundary  disputes  to  family  squabbles  are 
submitted  to  this  young  judge,  who  draws  his  de- 
cisions out  of  his  well-thumbed  copy  of  the  Sher- 
iat,  or  code  of  Mohammedan  law,  qualified  by  com- 
mon sense  and  his  own  perception  of  justice.  The 
people  love  him,  and  the  gift  rugs  and  saddle-baga 
that  adorn  his  den  testify  to  the  gratitude  of  the 
natives  for  his  fairness  and  sympathy.  Next  to 
his  work,  his  master  interest  is  the  gathering  of 
material  for  a  book  he  meditates  on  the  traits  of 
the  various  races  within  his  jurisdiction  and  the 
phenomena  of  their  contact  and  amalgamation. 
All  in  all,  he  is  the  Russian  counterpart  of  the 
beardless  deputy-commissioner  in  Burmah  or  the 
pro-consul  in  Ethiopia  who,  Kipling  would  have 
us  believe,  is  supplied  only  by  the  English  breed. 


306  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

In  the  Kommissar's  order  and  justice,  in  the 
power-plant  ten  leagues  up  the  river  that  gen- 
erates the  current  that  lights  the  manor  and  runs 
the  cotton-gins  and  presses,  in  the  mills  that 
clean,  grind,  and  press  the  cotton-seed,  the  oil 
from  which  is  elsewhere  made  into  the  candles 
used  at  the  front  and  in  railway-trains  all  over 
Russia,  in  the  carloads  of  cotton-bales  sent  to  feed 
the  Moscow  factories,  in  the  experiment  station 
testing  varieties  of  cotton-seed  and  cotton  tillage, 
and  finally  in  the  Central  Asiatic  Railway  itself, 
piercing  for  twelve  hundred  miles  into  the  former 
abode  of  robbery,  misgovernment,  and  fanaticism, 
you  see  the  justifying  side  of  Russian  imperialism. 

You  feel  it,  too,  as  you  post  over  the  forty-five 
leagues  of  beautiful  military  road  that  cross  the 
Caucasus,  leading  you  past  the  mountain  to  which 
the  gods  chained  Prometheus  and  through  the  in- 
comparable Daryal  Gorge.  Following  the  wind- 
ing, evenly  graded  road,  now  blasted  out  of  a  ver- 
tical cliff,  now  built  up  by  masonry,  now  leaping 
across  the  gorge  to  find  a  way  past  the  brawling 
Terek,  you  exclaim,  "Only  an  empire  could  do 
this!"  For  introducing  law  and  order  into  the 
Caucasus,  quelling  clan  feuds  and  intertribal  war, 
suppressing  brigandage,  and  letting  in  the  light- 
bringing  forces,  the  tsar's  Government  deserves 
the  thanks  of  mankind. 

But  even  in  its  beneficence  you  can  detect  the 
unsympathetic  spirit  of  the  Government.  To  do 
its  work  it  sent  soldiers  and  engineers,  but  not 
teachers.    In  either  care  for  the  public  health  or 


THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  RUSSIA     307 

provision  for  education  of  the  natives  it  cannot 
stand  comparison  with  the  American  regime  in  the 
Philippines.  Its  aims  were:  first,  dominion;  sec- 
ondly, increases  of  wealth.  For  the  health,  long- 
evity, happiness,  and  spiritual  advancement  of  its 
alien  subjects  it  showed  little  concern. 

Turn  now  to  the  other  side  of  the  shield.  Con- 
sider just  what  Russian  imperialism  meant  to  Fin- 
land, Poland,  the  Baltic  Provinces, — Esthland, 
Livland,  and  Courland, — Lithuania,  and  Georgia. 
Here  lived  peoples  longer  Christianized  than  the 
Russians,  older  in  culture,  nearer  to  the  warmth 
and  glow  of  western  Europe,  better  schooled,  bet- 
ter read,  and  better  bred.  Left  to  themselves,  of- 
ficials of  their  own  choosing  would  have  looked 
after  their  common  interests  with  more  intelli- 
gence, sympathy,  and  honesty  and  at  far  less  cost 
than  did  the  harsh  and  corrupt  tchinovniks 
of  the  tsar.  To  them  the  empire  meant  an  alien, 
ruthless  power  propped  on  the  darkness  and  su- 
perstition of  the  great  Russian  mass,  trying  to 
kill  their  language,  their  schools,  their  churches, 
their  associations,  and  their  national  spirit,  in  the 
interest  of  Muscovite  absolutism  and  Orthodoxy. 
They  felt  themselves  under  a  steam-roller  that 
was  flattening  them  down  to  a  level  with  the  gray, 
monotonous,  hopeless  existence  imposed  by  a  half- 
Oriental  despotism. 

It  may  be  said,  "At  least  the  empire  stood  for 
peace  and  order." 

Did  it! 

All  the  world  knows  that  the  Imperial  Govern- 


308  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

ment  from  time  to  time  eased  the  pressure  on  itself 
by  setting  the  "dark"  masses  upon  the  Jews. 
Popular  anti-Semitism  is  a  upas  tree  that  was  very 
diligently  manured  and  watered  by  officialdom. 
Nearly  everybody  knows  what  a  pogrom  is.  But 
not  everybody  knows  that  under  Nicholas  II, 
wherever  in  Eussia  the  population  was  mixed,  the 
Government  circulated  lies  and  sent  out  its  pro- 
vokers to  set  race  against  race.  Consider  what 
was  done  at  Yelizavetpol,  a  polyglot  city  in  Trans- 
caucasia, in  1905,  when  the  autocracy  was  at  its 
wits  •  end  to  find  strength  to  stand  out  against  the 
universal  outcry  for  liberty  and  reform. 

Cossacks  were  stationed  about  the  city  with 
orders  to  shoot  every  Armenian  who  showed  him- 
self in  the  Tatar  quarter  and  every  Tatar  who 
appeared  in  the  Armenian  quarter.  Ignorant 
then  of  the  trick  played  upon  them,  each  race  held 
the  other  responsible  for  these  murders,  and  a 
savage  race  war  broke  out  with  which  the  authori- 
ties in  no  way  interfered.  After  so  much  blood 
had  been  spilled  that  the  Government  no  longer 
feared  the  divided  and  weakened  people,  the  Cos- 
sacks were  brought  in  and  with  machine-guns 
mowed  down  every  one  in  sight,  till  no  one  dared 
lift  a  finger.  The  like  was  done  in  Baku  and  in 
no  one  knows  how  many  other  places.  When 
scholars  have  had  time  to  explore  the  secret 
archives  of  Nicholas's  reign,  we  shall  have  a  meas- 
ure of  this  villainous  campaign  of  the  autocracy 
against  the  peace  and  brotherhood  of  the  many 
peoples  swept  together  under  the  double  eagle. 


THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  RUSSIA     309 

In  Tiflis  the  sixty  thousand  Armenians  lived  on 
good  terms  with  the  Georgians  till  the  Russian 
viceroys  used  individual  Armenians  as  instru- 
ments of  their  policy  to  crush  out  the  national  in- 
stitutions and  spirit  of  Georgia,  and  the  Imperial 
Government  deliberately  stirred  up  bad  blood  be- 
tween the  peoples,  in  line  with  its  diabolical  policy 
of  playing  off  one  race  against  another. 

With  the  collapse  of  the  old  system,  an  immense 
pressure  was  lifted,  and  throughout  Russia 
balked  wills  began  to  .assert  themselves.  T^fce 
individual  will  was  quickest  to  take  advantage  of  ^ 
the  new  freedom.  Exultantly  men  tore  them- 
selves out  of  the  net  of  restrictions  in  which  they 
had  been  tied.  The  citizen  shouted,  danced,  and 
cut  capers  like  a  man  just  out  of  a  stone  cell. 
Everybody  said  what  he  liked,  read  what  he 
would,  published  what  he  pleased.  The  people 
revelled  in  public  meetings  and  open  discussions  in 
a  way  we  cannot  comprehend,  because  we  have  al- 
ways had  them.  From  sheer  delight  in  the  forbid- 
den they  tore  down  the  imperial  emblems,  hung 
out  the  red  flag  of  the  revolution,  paraded  in  the 
streets,  bought  themselves  firearms,  and  preached 
heterodoxies  from  a  soap-box.  The  discipline  of 
mill,  army,  fleet,  railroad,  office,  bureau,  school, 
and  church  was  relaxed,  and  rules  were  looked 
at  askance  unless  their  utility  was  apparent  at  a 
glance. 

Then  the  will  of  groups  made  itself  felt.    Ten-     : 
ants  got  together  and  demanded  lower  rentals, 
employees  sought  better  pay  or  conditions,  wait- 


310  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

ers  wanted  wages  instead  of  tips,  servants  asked 
for  fixed  hours  and  free  time,  soldiers  claimed  the 
right  to  bring  charges  against  their  officers, 
women  demanded  equal  opportunity,  and  laymen 
desired  a  voice  in  church  affairs.  These  asser- 
tions of  group  will  generally  came  later  than  as- 
sertions of  individual  will,  for  even  in  a  new  era 
it  takes  time  for  persons  with  a  common  interest 
to  realize  it,  come  together,  organize,  agree  upon 
aims,  and  formulate  demands.  First,  existing  or- 
ganizations, such  as  sectarian  and  professional 
associations,  were  heard  from.  Then  small  local 
groups  put  forward  claims — the  peasants  on  an 
estate,  the  workers  in  a  factory,  the  longshoremen 
of  a  port,  the  office  people  of  a  town,  the  house- 
maids of  a  suburb,  the  soldiers  of  a  garrison. 
Finally,  whole  classes — peasants,  workingmen, 
soldiers — worked  out  a  consensus  and  made   a 

v  huge  push  for  a  higher  place  in  the  social  order. 

j  \The  resistance  of  the  propertied  class  to  the  gla- 
cier-like will  of  the  proletariat  brought  on  the 
Bolshevist  revolution  of  November.   ] 

Parallel  to  the  coming  to  consciousness  of  the 
exploited  classes  there  was  a  coming  to  conscious- 
ness of  oppressed  nationalities.  A  century  and 
more  of  military  aggression  had  nearly  enveloped 
the  Russians  with  a  fringe  of  non-Russians. 
These  little  peoples  now  began  to  rear  and  pull 
away  like  lassoed  mustangs.  Early  in  the  revo- 
lution a  wave  of  senseless  separatism  rolled  over 
the  country.  Kronstad  seceded,  Schluesselberg 
proclaimed  itself  a  republic,  and  Kinsk,  a  little 


THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  RUSSIA     311 

city  in  Siberia,  formally  declared  its  independence 
of  Russia!  No  doubt  there  were  other  instances 
of  the  sort.  In  many  cities,  e.  g.,  Vladivostok, 
the  renouncing  of  allegiance  to  the  Provisional 
Government  was  agitated,  but  the  majority  had 
the  good  sense  to  vote  it  down. 

These  absurd  aspirations  passed,  but  certain 
tidal  separatist  movements  remained.  The  Finns 
had  been  shamefully  betrayed  by  Nicholas,  and 
the  Provisional  Government  fell  heir  to  the  hatred 
inspired  in  them  by  their  maltreatment  under  the 
old  regime.  Then,  too,  the  Finnish  Social  Demo- 
crats believed  they  would  stand  a  better  chance  of 
realizing  their  aims  if  Finland  were  not  bound 
up  with  Russia.  Through  the  latter  half  of  1917 
the  Finnish  Diet  was  jockeying  to  see  how  far  it 
dare  go.  At  every  sign  of  weakness  in  the  Pro- 
visional Government,  its  demands  for  separation 
became  bolder.  At  every  sign  of  energy  Helsing- 
fors  paused  or  receded.  Finally,  with  the  advent 
to  power  of  the  Bolsheviki,  the  Rubicon  was 
crossed,  and  Finland  declared  itself  an  independ- 
ent republic. 

Poland  and  the  Baltic  Provinces  are  in  posses- 
sion of  Russia's  enemies,  but  if  at  the  end  of  the 
war  they  are  left  free  to  choose  their  destinies, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  they  will  never  again  form 
a  part  of  Russia  save  as  states  in  a  federal  re- 
public. Esthland  would  fall  to  the  Esths.  Liv- 
land  and  Courland  to  the  Letts,  while  the  prov- 
inces of  Kovna,  Wilno,  and  Suwalki  would  be 
thrown  together  to  make  a  new  Lithuania.    As 


312  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

for  Poland,  everybody  seems  agreed  that  it  is  to 
be  independent. 

Immediately  east  of  Poland,  occupying  the  west- 
ern end  of  the  inner  plateau,  are  the  6,000,000 
White  Eussians,  a  subdivision  of  the  Eussian  race 
as  distinct  as  are  the  Little  Eussians.  In  the  past 
the  White  Eussians  have  been  less  self-assertive 
as  a  distinct  nationality  than  either  the  Poles  or 
the  Ukrainians,  but  with  the  present  upheaval  a 
national  awakening  came  among  them  that  can 
no  longer  be  ignored.  The  White  Russians  of 
Minsk,  Grodno,  Mogilev,  Vitebsk,  and  Smolensk 
will  very  probably  insist  on  statehood  within  the 
Russian  Federation. 

The  Eussian  word  for  frontier  is  Ukraina,  and 
this  name  came  to  be  applied  to  certain  parts  of 
southern  and  southwestern  Eussia,  at  the  time 
when  Eussia  was  pressing  the  Turks  and  the 
Crimean  Tatars  toward  the  Black  Sea.  Later  it 
became  the  slogan  of  the  Little  Eussians,  who  dif- 
fer considerably  in  temperament  and  language 
from  the  Great  Eussians.  The  movement  for  a 
separate  Ukraina  is  in  part  due  to  the  folly  of 
the  old  regime  which  wantonly  persecuted  the 
Ukrainian  dialect  and  poetry.  Much  more,  how- 
ever, is  it  the  outcome  of  an  elaborate  German 
propaganda  aimed  at  weakening  Russia.  Ger- 
many released  her  Ukraina  prisoners  of  war  if 
they  would  agree  to  go  back  and  agitate  for  an 
independent  Ukraine.  In  Kiev  the  Austrian  war- 
prisoners  have  been  allowed  to  go  about  in  the 
streets  and  parks  by  twos  and  threes  quite  with- 


Monument  to  Skobeloff's  victory  over  the  Turcomans  of  Geok  Tepe 


The  Tsar  Cannon     the  Kremlin,  Moscow 


.23 
T3 


ti 


THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  RUSSIA     315 

out  surveillance  and,  under  cover  of  the  Slavic 
tongue,  sow  their  ideas  among  the  Russians.  Pro- 
fessors known  to  be  of  Austrian  origin  and  to  have 
been  members  of  Austrian  universities  have  taken 
a  leading  part  in  the  Rada,  a  self-constituted  body 
which  claims  to  voice  the  wishes  of  the  people. 
The  Jews  in  the  Ukraina  are  pro-German,  and 
they  have  boomed  the  separation  idea.  The  Lit- 
tle-Russian peasants  are  free  from  the  communal 
landholding  that  is  a  millstone  about  the  neck  of 
the  Great-Russian  peasants,  and  have  been  fear- 
ful lest  Petrograd  land-nationalizers  force  them 
to  put  their  little  farms  into  the  melting-pot;  so 
the  movement  gained  headway  and  now  there  is 
an  independent  Ukraina  which  practically  cuts 
Russia  off  from  the  Black  Sea  and  from  the  coal 
fields  of  the  Donyetz  basin,  runs  a  political 
frontier  between  areas  which  have  the  best  of 
reasons  for  not  being  divided  and  weakens  the 
Slavs  in  the  face  of  German  encroachment.  It  is 
to  be  hoped  that  in  the  end  Ukraina  will  gravitate 
into  union  with  Russia. 

It  is  curious  that  this  young  aspirant  lacks  well- 
defined  boundaries.  The  Ukraina  that  received  a 
certain  amount  of  recognition  in  the  eighteenth 
century  comprised  but  two  provinces.  Now  it 
claims  sixteen  provinces,  including  South  Russia, 
which  has  grown  up  between  the  old  Ukraina  and 
the  Black  Sea  and  has  been  settled  not  by  Little 
Russians  only,  but  by  Russians  of  every  stripe. 

The  Cossacks,  as  is  well-known,  are  a  tax-free, 
land-endowed,  rural  population,  the  males  of  which 


316  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

are  bound  to  serve  after  their  eighteenth  year 
for  three  years  in  training,  twelve  years  in  the 
active  army,  and  five  years  in  the  reserve.  They 
are  cavalrymen,  and  each  furnishes  his  own  horse 
and  equipment.  Their  settlements  occurred  where 
the  government  had  available  land  and  needed  a 
frontier  guard,  either  as  protection  from  maraud- 
ing tribesmen  or  else  as  an  entering  wedge  and 
an  army  of  occupation  to  be  used  in  the  extension 
of  the  empire.  Hence  in  European  Russia  the 
Cossack  region  comprises  the  lower  Don  and  the 
provinces  north  of  the  Caucasus.  Besides  these 
Cossacks  of  the  Don,  the  Terek,  the  Kuban,  and 
Astrakhan,  there  are  Cossacks  of  southwestern 
Siberia  (Urals  and  Orenburg),  of  middle  Siberia, 
(Yenesei,  Semiretchensk  and  Altai),  and  east- 
ern Siberia  (Trans-Baikalia,  Ussuri,  and  Pre- 
Amur). 

The  Cossacks  are  about  to  lose  their  peculiar 
relation  to  the  Government,  for  a  republic  does 
not  need  an  element  in  the  population  with  an 
especial  obligation  to  render  military  service.  No 
doubt  in  return  they  will  have  to  give  up  their 
privileges  and  their  yet  undivided  land  and  de- 
scend to  the  same  footing  as  other  peasants.  But, 
nevertheless,  they  are  marked  off  in  a  way  from 
other  Russians.  They  have  among  them  no  work- 
ing men  and  no  urban  element.  Socialist  ideas  do 
not  appeal  to  them,  and  the  propertied  class  has 
looked  upon  Cossack  troops  as  its  lever  for  over- 
throwing the  Bolsheviki.  Amid  the  spreading  an- 
archy and  indiscipline  among  the  Russian  troops, 


THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  RUSSIA     317 

the  Cossacks  have  stood  almost  unscathed.  More-; 
over,  the  Cossacks  of  each  oblast  (territory)  have 
a  democratic  organization  of  their  own.  It  is 
therefore  likely  that  the  Cossack  country  will  yield 
one  or  more  states  if  Russian  ceases  to  be  unitary. 

The  kingdom  of  Georgia,  lying  south  of  the  crest 
of  the  Caucasus  range,  had  an  independent  exist- 
ence for  at  least  twenty  centuries — thirty  is 
claimed — before  Moslem  pressure  in  1783  obliged 
it  to  yield  up  its  independence  by  treaty  and  ac- 
cept a  viceroy  named  by  the  tsaritsa.  The  Geor- 
gians are  a  gallant  and  doughty  people.  None  of 
the  conquerors  who  overran  the  plateau  to  the 
south — Avars,  Arabs,  Turks,  Persians,  and  Mon- 
gols— ever  got  further  into  the  mountains  than 
Tiflis.  Mtschet,  the  ancient  Georgian  capital  only 
seven  leagues  away,  has  never  been  taken.  The 
Georgian  martial  bearing  and  fondness  for  arms 
is  derived  from  their  almost  incessant  fighting  in 
self-defense  against  peoples  much  more  numer- 
ous. The  Georgians  are  so  handsome  that  for  a 
time  the  white  race  masqueraded  under  the  name 
"Caucasian"  in  order  to  profit  by  the  renown 
of  Georgian  good  looks.  The  Georgian  language 
is  both  spoken  and  read.  The  literature  is  rich, 
and  the  national  spirit  shows  no  sign  of  dying  out. 

The  hand  of  Russia  became  heavy  upon  Georgia 
when,  under  Alexander  III,  Pobyedonostzef  and 
Delyanof  gained  the  ascendancy  at  court,  and 
here,  as  elsewhere,  the  steam-roller  was  set  in  oper- 
ation. A  systematic  attempt  was  made  to  handi- 
cap or  crush  everything  Georgian.    The  supplant- 


318  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

ing  of  Georgian  coinage,  the  introduction  of  com- 
pulsory military  service,  the  Russification  of 
Georgian  schools  and  the  Georgian  Church  were 
all  in  violation  of  the  treaty  of  1783.  The  nation 
was  so  exasperated  at  Romanof  bad  faith  that 
early  in  the  war  Georgian  leaders  began  negotiat- 
ing with  Berlin  for  Turkish  aid  in  throwing  off 
the  Russian  yoke,  and  only  the  new  face  put  on 
things  by  the  Revolution  brought  them  over  to  the 
cause  of  their  natural  friends,  the  Allies. 

Aware  of  the  danger  of  being  enveloped  from 
the  south  by  Pan-Islamism,  Georgia  does  not  wish 
to  be  independent.  In  case  a  federal  republic 
is  established  in  Russia  Georgia  will  doubtless 
seek  admission  as  a  state.  Otherwise  she  is  in 
danger  of  being  pinned  against  the  mountains  and 
crushed  by  the  barbarous  Turkish  power  which, 
thanks  to  German  aid,  appears  to  be  endowed 
with  a  new  lease  of  life  and  fresh  possibilities  of 
harm. 

In  order  to  satisfy  the  national  aspirations  of 
the  Tatars,  who  predominate  numerically  in 
Daghestan,  the  eastern  Caucasus,  and  thence  south 
as  far  as  Persia,  there  must  be  created  a  Tatar 
state  having  Baku  as  its  capital.  The  Tatars 
for  a  thousand  miles  up  the  Volga  would  bow  with 
better  grace  to  the  rule  of  their  more  numerous 
Slavic  neighbors  if  they  knew  that  the  principle 
of  majority  rule  was  applied  when,  west  of  the 
Caspian,  it  runs  in  their  favor.  There  is  also  a 
possibility  that  the  Tatars  in  the  Crimea  may 
think  themselves  entitled  to  set  up  a  state. 


THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  RUSSIA     319 

Since  in  each  of  the  proposed  Transcaucasian 
states  the  population  would  be  considerably  mixed, 
at  least  in  spots,  the  principle  of  ''culture 
autonomy  [  J  will  have  to  be  adopted  if  good  feeling 
is  to  be  preserved  among  the  races.  This  means 
equality  of  the  races  before  the  law,  no  discrimina- 
tion, religious  freedom,  separation  of  church  and 
state,  dual  or  triple  public  schools,  or  else  division 
of  the  funds  for  education,  and  bilingual  or  tri- 
lingual courts  and  public  bodies,  as  in  Switzer- 
land. The  nationalizing  policies  so  dear  to  the 
modern  state  will  have  to  be  foresworn  from  the 
outset. 

All  travelers  agree  that  the  Siberians  are  su- 
perior to  the  Russians.  They  are  bigger,  better- 
looking,  brighter,  and  show  more  independence 
and  initiative.  The  Siberian  has  a  supreme  con- 
tempt for  the  Russian  and  resents  being  called 
Russian.  "Ya  Siberiak,"  he  will  explain — "I  am 
a  Siberian."  Siberia  has  been  settled  by  robbers, 
runaway  serfs,  unruly  serfs  who  were  transported 
many  thousands  a  year  at  the  instance  of  their 
masters,  convicts,  and  political  offenders.  Serf- 
dom never  took  root  in  this  region.  It  has  had 
little  experience  with  communal  landholding. 
Only  one  Siberian  title  of  nobility  has  been 
granted.  The  intellectual  tone  of  the  country  has 
been  formed  by  "politicals"  who  have  been  sent 
thither  for  a  hundred  years,  during  the  last  forty 
years  in  truly  staggering  numbers.  All  the  peo- 
ple read  and  write  and  are  republican  in  spirit. 
They  have  good  schools,  libraries,  cooperatives, 


320  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

and  credit  unions,  and  their  plane  of  culture  and 
social  well-being  is  much  higher  than  that  of  rural 
Russia. 

It  is  likely,  therefore,  that  the  Siberians  will 
insist  on  as  much  self-determination  as  the  Little 
Russians  or  the  Georgians  enjoy.  But  proper 
boundaries  are  not  easy  to  find  in  Siberia,  so  there 
is  yet  no  indication  whether  the  Siberians  will 
gather  themselves  into  three  or  four  states  or  into 
a  dozen.  All  that  is  certain  is  that  they  will  not 
be  ruled  from  Petrograd. 

What  of  the  rest  of  Russia? 

Turkestan,  of  course,  should  constitute  national 
territory  and  be  ruled  as  we  rule  the  Philippines. 
The  population  is  so  heterogeneous,  so  lacking  in 
agreements,  that  only  a  firm  outside  hand  can  keep 
peace  among  them.  Then,  too,  these  Asiatics 
have  never  deserved  nor  felt  sufficient  reciprocal 
confidence  to  create  their  organs  of  government. 
They  always  have  been  ruled  by  members  of  their 
own  race  or  of  another.  If  they  rose  against  one 
ruler,  it  was  only  that  a  more  popular  man  might 
sit  in  his  place  and  wield  the  same  absolute  au- 
thority. Never  has  it  occurred  to  them  to  choose 
a  ruler  in  an  orderly  way  for  a  stated  period  and 
to  treat  him  as  servant,  not  master,  of  the  people, 
executor  of  the  laws  rather  than  of  his  own  arbi- 
trary will. 

Upon  a  people  with  such  traditions,  how  rash  it 
is  to  thrust  our  institutions  of  self-government! 
Shortly  before  my  visit  to  Khokand  the  city  had 
held  its  first  municipal  election,  for  doctrinaire 


THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  RUSSIA     321 

democrats  in  Petrograd  had  decreed  that  every 
town  must  have  a  body  of  its  own  choosing  to 
care  for  its  affairs.  In  the  native  city  the  Sarts 
became  so  excited  over  this  rare  and  strange  game 
of  politics  that  there  was  a  riot  in  which  ten  per- 
sons were  killed.  To  roll  such  an  apple  of  discord 
into  the  midst  of  a  people  who  know  nothing  of 
the  self-restraints  the  citizen  of  a  democracy  im- 
poses on  himself  is  criminal  folly. 

How  about  the  central  mass — Great  Russia? 
Some  think  that  for  the  sake  of  symmetry  and  bal- 
ance the  Great  Russians  should  be  organized  into 
states  of  convenient  size,  the  basis  of  this  group- 
ing to  be  economic.  Thus  the  forest  gubernias  of 
the  North  might  be  thrown  together  into  a  big 
state ;  the  gubernias  about  Moscow,  in  which  man- 
ufacturing, especially  the  textile  industry,  is 
greatly  developed,  might  form  another.  The 
agricultural  region  of  the  Volga  could  constitute 
a  third,  and  so  on.  No  doubt  the  carving  of  Great 
Russia  into  areas  to  become  self-governing  states 
would  have  to  be  arbitrary,  but,  then,  what  can 
be  more  arbitrary  than  the  lines  that  divide  the 
states  in  our  Mississippi  Valley?  Yet  the  result 
has  been  a  brilliant  success. 

What  functions  will  be  handed  over  to  the  fed- 
eral Government  for  Russia?  Forests,  certainly, 
for  the  enormous  stretches  of  primeval  woods, 
especially  in  Siberia,  should  be  held  in  trust  for 
the  whole  people.  New  Russia  will  rely  too  much 
on  these  forests  for  fuel  and  lumber  to  allow  their 
being  handled  in  a  narrow  and  selfish  way  by  the 


322  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

states  in  which  they  happen  to  be  located.  The 
care  of  rivers  and  harbors  will  be  confided,  of 
course,  to  the  central  Government.  For  example, 
the  keeping  open  of  the  Volga  and  its  navigable 
tributaries  is  a  task  quite  too  big  to  be  handled 
well  by  states. 

Another  task  for  the  federal  government  is  the 
cutting  of  canals.  At  one  point  in  their  lower 
course  the  Volga  and  the  Don  are  only  forty  miles 
apart.  A  cut  connecting  them  would  have  a  magi- 
cal effect  upon  Russia's  inland  transportation. 
The  down-Volga  traffic,  instead  of  having  before 
it  nothing  but  the  Caspian  sink,  might  head  for 
the  Black  Sea,  the  Dardanelles,  and  Gibraltar. 
By  using  the  Irtish,  the  Tara,  the  Kama,  and  the 
Volga,  the  products  of  Western  Siberia  could  find 
their  way  out  to  the  salt  highways  of  the  globe. 
Not  only  would  the  canal  unite  the  northeast  of 
Russia  with  the  southwest,  but  the  Don  basin  in 
Central  Russia  would  be  brought  nearer  to  the 
regions  beyond  the  Caspian — Persia  and  Turk- 
estan. It  is  estimated  that  the  canal  would  need 
twenty-one  locks  and  might  be  completed  in  seven 
years.  Here,  some  suggest,  is  a  job  for  American 
capital  and  engineering  skill. 

Petrograd,  of  course,  should  look  after  the  har- 
bors on  the  Baltic,  and  the  Pacific,  and  develop 
new  water-routes  connecting  the  mouths  of  the  Ob 
and  the  Yenesei,  via  the  Kara  Sea,  with  the 
world's  oceans.  It  should  regulate  the  use  of 
streams  originating  in  one  state  and  diverted  for 
irrigation  to   another,   and  in  the  vast   Trans- 


THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  RUSSIA     323 

Caspian  region  it  should  in  time  set  afoot  huge 
reclamation  projects  to  make  the  desert  bloom. 

The  iron  highways  have  been  nationally  devel- 
oped, and  it  is  unthinkable  that  they  should  ever 
be  treated  as  state,  rather  than  national,  concerns. 
Russia  has  about  one-fifth  of  the  railway  mileage 
of  the  United  States,  and  enormous  outlays  will 
be  necessary  to  meet  the  transportation  needs  of 
Siberia  and  Central  Asia.  The  means  can  be  pro- 
vided only  by  the  financial  resources  and  borrow- 
ing power  of  the  Central  Government. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  the  complete  con- 
trol of  interstate  commerce  should  be  lodged  in 
Petrograd.  Nearly  all  the  urban  and  industrial 
population  north  of  the  "black  soil"  belt  looks  to 
the  " black  soil"  for  its  bread,  so  that  the  wheat 
states  of  the  South  would  hold  a  club  over  the 
heads  of  the  North  if  they  possessed  any  power 
over  the  flow  of  goods  from  state  to  state.  Or 
consider  how,  in  the  absence  of  national  authority 
over  interstate  commerce,  the  Ukraina,  controlling 
the  coal  from  the  Donyetz  basin  near  Kharkof,  and 
the  Tatar  state  on  the  Caspian,  controlling  the  oil 
from  the  Baku  wells,  might  hold  up  the  rest  of 
Russia. 

Unlike  our  own  Federal  Government,  the 
"United  States  of  Russia"  will  feel  a  responsi- 
bility for  the  maintenance  of  higher  education. 
The  Central  Government  may  well  retire  from 
the  field  of  secondary  education,  but  it  would  go  ill 
with  the  universities  if  the  hand  of  Petrograd  were 
withdrawn.    Georgia  could  not  find  means  for  the 


324  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

maintenance  of  a  real  university.  The  states  that 
are  chiefly  Tatar  or  Cossack  in  population  would 
hardly  value  higher  education  enough  to  submit  to 
the  expense  of  keeping  up  such  an  institution. 
Lovers  of  the  things  of  the  mind  are  very  un- 
equally distributed  through  Russia.  Petrograd 
has  been  drawing  to  itself  the  country's  best 
talent,  just  as  Paris  has  drained  France  of  its  best 
minds.  Science  and  learning  therefore,  will  fare 
worse  in  the  less  lighted  parts  of  the  country  if  the 
universities  look  to  state  support,  rather  than  to 
national  support.  It  would  be  rash  for  the  Rus- 
sians to  follow  our  policy  in  this  respect,  when 
their  conditions  are  so  different. 

New  Russia  will  probably  turn  her  back  squarely 
upon  the  diabolical  Pobyedonostzef  ideal  of  Rus- 
sification  and  religious  unity.  The  Russian  na- 
ture is  tolerant,  and  if  the  machinery  of  govern- 
ment can  be  kept  out  of  the  hands  of  fanatics,  it 
may  be  possible  to  realize  a  tranquil  common  life, 
despite  the  Babel  of  tongues  and  the  bedlam  of 
faiths.  The  Jews  will  have  the  forethought  to  see 
to  it  that  the  Federal  Constitution  of  Russia  con- 
tains strong  guarantees  that  will  prevent  discrim- 
ination against  any  race  or  religion,  either  by  the 
nation  or  by  any  of  its  constituent  states.  It  is 
not  certain,  however,  that  a  state 's  right  to  estab- 
lish a  form  of  religion  will  be  denied. 

Russia  was  decreed  "dry"  by  the  fiat  of  a  tsar, 
but  it  is  doubtful  if  in  the  future  the  liquor  ques- 
tion will  be  settled  at  a  stroke  over  so  vast  an 
area.    There  are  valleys  in  the  Caucasus  that 


THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  RUSSIA     325 

make  delectable  wine,  and  rather  than  see  her 
thousands  of  acres  of  vineyard  uprooted,  Georgia 
will  insist  that  an  alcohol  policy  is  a  matter  for 
the  state,  rather  than  for  the  nation. 

The  Russian  Empire  was  the  most  extensive  and 
the  most  heterogeneous  of  all  unitary  states.  The 
reasons  for  replacing  it  with  a  federal  union  are 
far  more  potent  than  those  that  prompted  the 
Canadians,  the  Colombians,  the  Brazilians,  the 
Argentinians,  the  Australians,  and  the  South  Afri- 
cans to  adopt  the  federal  system.  A  century  ago 
there  was  but  one  sample  of  such  government  in 
the  world,  viz.,  the  United  States  of  America. 
Now  there  are  eleven,  and  continually  this  type 
makes  new  conquests.  How  strange  if  Russia, 
vastest  of  all  political  bodies,  should  remain  a 
unitary  state ! 

The  earlier  revolutionists,  like  Bakunin,  Kro- 
potkin,  and  Tcherkessof,  were  federalist,  but  the 
later  leaders  under  the  spell  of  German  political 
thought  have  been  centralist.  In  August  I  found 
Professor  Milyoukof  scouting  the  idea  of  making 
Russia  federal,  and  a  young  professor  of  consti- 
tutional law  exclaimed  despairingly  to  me,  "I 
doubt  if  there  are  fifteen  persons  in  Petrograd 
who  understand  what  constitutes  a  federal  state." 
But  during  the  autumn  this  idea  began  to  find 
wide  favor,  for  there  is  no  other  plan  whereby 
Russia  may  be  kept  from  political  extinction. 

For  a  while  the  trend  will  be  centrifugal.  Noth- 
ing will  dissuade  the  half-drowned  peoples  of  the 
fringe  from  tasting  a  glorious  hour  of  independ- 


326  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

ence.  But  if  among  true  Russians  there  is  wis- 
dom enough  to  set  up  a  sensible  federal  system 
and  invite  Ukraina,  Georgia,  and  the  rest  to  come 
in,  the  latter  will  have  good  reasons  for  not  hold- 
ing aloof. 

They  will  be  attracted,  for  one  thing,  by  the 
greater  security  they  can  hope  to  enjoy  as  mem- 
bers of  a  powerful  union  and  by  the  prospect  of 
being  relieved  of  certain  burdens,  such  as  the  sup- 
port of  a  diplomatic  and  consular  service,  a  mili- 
tary establishment,  public  works,  and  a  univer- 
sity. They  will  soon  become  aware  of  their 
helplessness  if  Russian  tariff  policy  should  cut 
them  off  from  the  limitless  market  to  which  they 
have  been  accustomed.  How  Poland  would  suffer 
if  a  protective  tariff  cut  off  her  manufacturing 
centers — Warsaw  and  Lodz — from  their  millions 
of  Russian  customers!  Reflecting  upon  such 
things,  the  "little  peoples"  will  be  tempted  to 
forego  the  exhilaration  of  having  a  national  flag 
and  anthem  for  the  solid  advantages  of  being 
within  a  vast  free-trade  area. 

Finally,  they  may  consider  how  the  Balkan 
States  have  torn  one  another  asunder  since  they 
became  free  of  the  Turk,  and  reflect  upon  the  serv- 
ices of  a  Supreme  Court  in  finding  a  peaceful 
solution  for  the  disputes  that  may  arise  between 
the  states  of  a  federal  union.  They  may  study 
the  "critical  period  of  American  history,"  1783- 
87,  when  several  of  the  thirteen  new  states  were 
on  the  point  of  bloodshed  over  trade  disputes,  and 
discover  that  our  Federal  system  was  instituted 


Russian  fish  seller 


THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  RUSSIA     329 

mainly  in  order  to  avert  war  between  sister 
commonwealths.  They  may  remember  that  a  true 
state  is  ipso  facto  a  peace  area,  and  that  by  break- 
ing up  Russia  they  run  the  risk  of  reintroducing 
strife  into  the  abode  of  peace. 

If  such  considerations  do  not  prevail,  but  in- 
stead a  number  of  self-willed  little  sovereignties 
take  the  place  of  the  Russian  Empire,  there  will 
presently  be  war  between  some  of  these  new 
states  and  people  will  look  back  with  regret  on  the 
vanished  peace  of  the  tsar ! 


CHAPTER  XVI 
PROSPECTS  AND  LESSONS 

WBAT  actually  has  happened  in  Russia  sur- 
passes the  wildest  dreams  of  the  fictionist. 
Thanks  to  two  revolutions/the  smaller  and  more 
commonplace  one  of  last  March  and  the  greater 
one  of  last  November,  there  has  been  set  up  in 
Russia  a  workers'  republic,  with  state  ownership 
of  the  land  and  all  its  minerals  and  forests,  the 
obligation  of  all  to  work,  the  arming  of  the  work- 
ers, the  disarming  and  disfranchising  of  the  lei- 
sure class,  and  the  organization  of  a  socialist 
army  of  workmen  and  peasants.  /The  extremists 
have  been  able  to  achieve  all  this  because  of  the 
misery  of  the  masses  after  three  years  of  war,  the 
bitterness  of  the  toilers  against  the  landed  pro- 
prietors and  the  capitalists,  the  pets  and  proteges 
of  the  old  regime,  the  smallness  and  weakness  of 
the  middle  class,  the  lack  of  strong  private-prop- 
,  erty  feelings  in  the  rural  population,  the  freedom 
of  the  masses  from  the  guidance  of  tradition,  the 
general  want  of  confidence  in  the  church,  and  the 
tendency  of  the  Russian  intellect  in  its  present 
II  stage  of  development  to  follow  accepted  princi- 
i  I  pies  relentlessly  to  their  logical  conclusions  with- 
out pausing  to  see  how  they  work. 
In  November  the  business  men  I  talked  with  in 

330 


PROSPECTS  AND  LESSONS         331 

Rostov  and  Moscow  all  said,  "Wait  two  weeks, 
and  we  '11  have  those  fellows  cleared  out."  No 
one  gave  the  sovyets  a  longer  shrift  than  three 
weeks.  It  was  confidently  predicted  that,  when 
the  Constitutional  Assembly  sought  to  meet,  there 
would  be  a  great  uprising  in  case  the  new  Govern- 
ment interfered  with  it.  When  finally  a  quorum 
got  together  in  January,  and  the  vote  for  presi- 
dent showed  that  the  Bolsheviki  and  their  allies, 
the  left  wing  of  the  Social  Revolutionists,  had 
only  forty-five  per  cent,  of  the  members,  the  As- 
sembly was  dissolved.  It  was  a  bold  step,  but  the 
country  did  nothing.  (^The  Government  urged 
with  some  color  of  justice  that  the  Assembly  was 
not  fully  representative,  because  the  lists  of  peas- 
ant candidates  were  made  up  in  September  by  the 
Social  Revolutionary  Right  and  Center.  After 
the  Left  broke  away  from  the  party  and  joined  the 
Bolsheviki,  it  was  too  late  for  them  to  get  into  the 
field  candidates  of  their  own.  It  is  a  fact,  too, 
that  events  were  coming  so  fast  and  political  opin- 
ion was  so  swayed  by  day-by-day  developments 
that  no  man  can  say  that  a  minority  party  in  an 
election  in  the  third  week  of  November  was  neces- 
sarily a  minority  party  two  months  later,  when 
the  Constitutional  Assembly  was  sent  home.  ) 

In  December  the  Cossacks  of  the  Don  and  Cis- 
caucasia were  the -star  of  hope  for  the  propertied 
class.  Several  of  the  prominent  men  I  sought  to 
see  then  were  absent  at  Novocherkassk,  the  capi- 
tal of  the  Don  Cossacks,  preparing  a  thrust  at  the 
Bolsheviki.    Coming  out,  we  found  detachments 


332  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

of  Cossacks  supporting  the  municipal  authorities 
against  the  Sovyets  at  Ekaterinburg  and  Irkutsk. 
But  finally  all  this  resistance  crumbled  away. 
General  Kaledin,  the  dashing  hetman  of  the  Cos- 
sacks, seeing  the  game  was  lost,  committed  sui- 
cide. General  Alexieff's  army  of  officers  and 
sons  of  the  propertied  class  was  beaten  by  the 
Red  Guard,  and  the  general  submitted.  The  Cos- 
sacks have  gone  over  to  the  Sovyets,  and  the 
Southeast  has  ceased  to  be  a  source  of  danger  to 
the  proletarian  Government.  There  is  every  in- 
dication, too,  that  before  long  the  few  remaining 
nests  of  counter-revolutionary  forces  in  Siberia 
will  be  cleared  out.  The  announced  policy  of 
using  the  trained  and  experienced  generals  devel- 
oped under  the  old  regime  in  the  building  of  the 
new  army  indicates  a  growing  consciousness  of 
strength  in  the  " People's  Kommissars." 

For  the  first  two  months  the  new  Government 
was  nearly  stalled  by  the  refusal  of  the  thousands 
of  experienced  civil  servants  in  the  various  minis- 
tries to  work  under  the  Kommissars.  This  sabo- 
tage of  the  machinery  of  the  state  was  instigated 
and  made  possible  by  the  propertied  class,  which 
raised  a  fund  out  of  which  to  pay  the  salaries  of 
the  striking  civil  servants.  In  some  cases  alto- 
gether new  staffs  had  to  be  formed  in  the  minis- 
tries. But  when  the  Kommissars  got  control  of 
the  banks  and  cut  off  the  resources  from  which 
the  bourgeoisie  were  supporting  the  strikers,  this 
resistance  collapsed.     The  fact  that  in  March  the 


PROSPECTS  AND  LESSONS    333 

Government  invited  the  educated  and  technical 
members  of  the  radical  bourgeoisie  to  come  in  and 
help  in  social  reconstruction  leaves  small  pros- 
pect that  the  new  order  will  be  paralyzed  by  lack 
of  intelligent  men  to  work  the  machinery  of  the 
state. 

Nothing  can  be  more  absurd  than  the  idea  in 
favor  with  the  conservative  press  in  the  United 
States  that  the  new  order  is  one  of  " anarchy"  or 
is  directed  by  "anarchists."  No  doubt  the  Bol- 
shevist agitators,  by  fanning  the  embers  of  dis- 
content and  mutiny,  did  their  utmost  to  create 
difficulties  for  the  Kerensky  Government,  based 
upon  a  hollow  coalition  of  bourgeoisie  and  work- 
ing class.  Until  they  dealt  their  blow  and  gained 
the  upper  hand,  the  radicals  were  an  influence 
for  disobedience  and  disintegration,  especially 
among  the  sailors  and  soldiers.  After  the  No- 
vember Revolution  it  was  not  possible  to  bring 
the  insubordinate  elements  at  once  under  control. 
In  all  quarters  discipline  had  become  greatly  re- 
laxed. But  the  new  men  at  the  helm  understood 
clearly  the  necessity  of  order,  and  trusty  armed 
factory  workers,  rendering  a  willing  obedience  to 
those  clothed  with  authority  by  the  Sovyets, 
hastened  hither  and  thither,  quelling  rioting  peas- 
ants, unruly  soldiers,  and  criminal  mobs.  Even 
in  December  I  heard  frequently  the  observation 
that  in  the  great  cities  there  was  better  order  and 
less  crime  than  there  had  been  at  any  previous 
time  since  the  tsar  fell. 


334  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

How  little  sympathy  the  People's  Kommissars 
have  with  anarchy  appears  from  a  notice  sent  out 
about  the  middle  of  January  to  all  Sovyets: 

From  all  sides  we  are  receiving  news  of  disorders  and 
excesses  at  railway  stations  by  soldiers  and  others.  The 
railways  are  in  the  power  of  the  mob.  Cars  are  opened, 
and  their  contents  plundered,  Large  numbers  of 
profiteers  are  transporting  goods  arbitrarily  without 
having  paid  anything  on  them.  Cars  are  uncoupled 
from  trains,  thus  interfering  with  the  instructions  of 
the  railway  servants.  This  state  of  anarchy  has  en- 
tirely disorganized  the  transport  service  and  has  the 
worst  possible  effect  with  regard  to  supplying  starving 
regions  and  the  armies  in  the  front  with  food.  It  is 
creating  indescribable  suffering. 

In  drawing  your  attention  to  this  state  of  things  we 
beg  the  Sovyets  to  stop  at  nothing  and  to  take  the  most 
drastic  and  severe  measures  for  establishing  revolu- 
tionary order  on  the  railways  and  also  to  organize  spe- 
cial detachments  of  the  Red  Guards,  Revolutionary 
volunteers  and  disciplined  and  faithful  military  de- 
tachments for  the  defense  of  the  permanent  ways, 
bridges,  and  railway  warehouses,  for  the  convoying  of 
freight  and  passenger-trains,  for  the  establishment  of 
order  among  passengers,  and  for  combatting  the 
profiteers. 

In  view  of  the  profit  Germany,  the  arch  foe  of 
democracy,  socialism,  pacifism,  and  everything 
else  the  Bolsheviki  stand  for,  has  drawn  from 
their  fatuous  attitude  toward  the  war,  the  ques- 
tion is  pertinent:  Are  not  Lenine  and  Trotzky 
Germany's  agents,  and  has  not  the  Eussian  pro- 
letarian movement  been  all  along  directed  by  Ger- 


PROSPECTS  AND  LESSONS         335 

many  with  the  object  of  breaking  Russia's  mili- 
tary strength?  As  to  this,  I  have  of  course  no 
evidence;  all  I  can  offer  is  " indications."  It  is 
true  that  the  bourgeois  press  in  Russia  habitually 
portrays  the  Bolshevist  leaders  as  German  agents, 
but  none  of  the  numerous  bourgeois  I  interviewed 
avowed  such  a  belief.  That  both  Lenine  and 
Trotzky  are  men  with  a  record  may  be  seen  from 
any  book  dealing  with  Russian  social  movements 
and  leaders  since  1905.  Lenine  is  an  Oulianof, 
of  a  family  renowned  for  its  revolutionary  role. 
One  of  his  brothers  suffered  death  for  an  attempt 
on  the  life  of  the  tsar.  He  is  author  of  a  great 
stack  of  economic  and  statistical  works,  and  has 
long  been  editor  of  the  organ  of  the  Russian  So- 
cial Democrats.  His  treatise  on  the  economic  de- 
velopment of  Russia  is  the  standard  work  on  the 
subject.  Trotzky,  who  is  a  Hebrew,  was  presi- 
dent of  the  Petrograd  Sovyet  in  1905  and  suffered 
exile  to  Siberia.  His  brochure  "There  and 
Back"  is  a  thrilling  story  of  a  remarkable  escape. 
It  would  be  strange  if  these  men,  after  years  of 
intrepid  devotion  to  a  cause  and  of  utter  indiffer- 
ence to  the  threats  and  bribes  of  the  tsar's  min- 
isters, should  succumb  to  the  temptation  of  Ger- 
man gold.  To  a  man  like  Lenine,  nearly  sixty 
years  of  age,  what  could  money  mean  in  compari- 
son with  the  opportunity  to  immortalize  himself 
by  instituting  a  new  social  order?  Bear  in  mind, 
too,  that  just  as  the  British  cabinet  can  at  any 
moment  be  destroyed  by  an  adverse  vote  of  Par- 
liament, so  Lenine 's  government  can  at  any  mo- 


336  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

ment  be  ended  by  an  adverse  vote  in  the  All-Rus- 
sian Central  Executive  Committee.  Lenine  may 
be  a  traitor  to  his  country,  but  this  body  of  250 
clever  Russians  have  certainly  failed  to  perceive 
any  evidence  of  it.  \The  documents  published  by 
a  French  journal  purporting  to  authorize  a  Ger- 
man bank  to  honor  drafts  by  the  Bolshevik  lead- 
ers appear  by  internal  evidence  to  be  a  clumsy 
forgery.  ) 

It  is  anomalous  that  in  a  society  in  which  not 
over  fifteen  per  cent,  of  the  proletariat  are  town 
wage-earners,  the  representation  of  the  workers 
and  that  of  the  peasants  in  the  governing  body 
should  be  equal.  This  parity  in  representation  of 
elements  so  unequal  in  numbers  arises  quite  natu- 
rally out  of  the  superior  enlightenment  and  lead- 
ership of  the  factory  workers.  Much  earlier  than 
the  peasants  they  organized,  gained  class  con- 
sciousness, hammered  out  their  program,  and 
shed  their  blood  in  order  to  realize  it.  The  second 
revolution  was  made  by  an  aggressive,  determined 
minority — the  membership  of  the  Workers'  and 
Soldiers'  Sovyets.  The  Peasants'  Congress  later 
accepted  the  fait  accompli  and  agreed  to  come  in 
on  a  50-50  basis.  For  some  years,  it  may  be,  the 
peasants  will  consent  to  the  leadership  of  the 
working-men;  but  sooner  or  later  representation 
will  have  to  be  made  proportionate  to  numbers, 
and  then  it  will  be  peasant  aims  and  ideals  that 
will  give  direction  to  the  Russian  state. 

One  cannot  repress  grave  misgivings  as  to  the 
caliber  and  breadth  of  outlook  of  the  men  who  will 


The  Georgian  Military  Road  near  entrance  to  Daryal  Gorge 


PROSPECTS  AND  LESSONS    339 

come  into  the  seats  of  power  under  the  Sovyet 
organization.  Will  those  who  have  been  pro- 
moted to  the  top  for  the  purpose  of  gratifying  the 
imperious  cravings  of  the  unenlightened  masses — 
peace,  land  for  the  peasants,  and  their  whole  prod- 
uct to  the  workers — appreciate  and  support  the 
things  which  in  less  obvious  ways  minister  to  the 
Eussian  people?  How  will  the  universities,  the 
schools  of  law,  medicine,  and  engineering',  the 
libraries,  museums,  and  art  galleries  fare  in  the 
new  order?  Will  the  bacteriological  laboratories, 
the  agricultural  experiment  stations,  the  geologi- 
cal survey  of  Russia,  fall  into  neglect?  Will  for- 
ests and  fisheries  and  game  be  protected?  In 
dealing  with  religious  and  charitable  institutions, 
credit  institutions,  law  courts,  and  the  like,  will 
there  be  such  a  lack  of  foresight  as  was  shown  in 
the  decrees  abolishing  all  distinctions  between 
officers  and  privates  and  repudiating  the  public 
debt  of  Russia?  If  the  higher  public  services  are 
not  starved  and  ruined  under  the  Sovyet  regime, 
it  will  be  only  because  the  ignorant  masses  put 
their  trust  in  the  intellectuals  who  suffered  for 
them  during  their  sojourn  in  the  house  of  bondage. 
The  excessive  birth-rate  of  the  Russian  people 
is  a  menace  to  itself  and  to  the  rest  of  the  world. 
If  the  masses  do  not  limit  the  size  of  their  families, 
all  the  land  the  peasants  have  gained  by  the  Revo- 
lution will  go  to  support  increase  of  population 
instead  of  raising  the  plane  of  life,  and  twenty  or 
thirty  years  hence  they  will  be  just  as  poor  and 
miserable  as  they  are  now.    The  chief  agencies 


340  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

which  might  prompt  self-restraint  in  the  matter  of 
fecundity  are  individual  ownership  of  land,  popu- 
lar education,  and  greater  self-assertiveness  on 
the  part  of  the  peasant  women.  Unfortunately, 
the  Eevolution  has  checked  the  break-up  of  the 
rural  communes,  and  communal  landholding,  with 
its  encouragement  to  multiplication,  seems  now 
stronger  than  ever.  Whether  the  Sovyet  type  of 
government  will  appreciate  schools  and  inspire 
the  people  to  make  great  sacrifices  for  the  sake 
of  universal  education  remains  to  be  seen.  The 
false  Tolstoyan  ideal  of  unambitiousness,  broth- 
erly love,  simple  standards  of  living,  and  prolific 
wifehood  would  make  Russia  as  dismal  as  China. 
The  bulk  of  the  Russian  people  are  kind,  gener- 
ous, and  forgiving,  but  not  as  honest,  truthful, 
and  faithful  to  engagements  as  some  other  peo- 
ples. In  order  to  meet  these  requirements  of  a 
higher  social  life,  they  will  have  to  undergo  fur- 
ther individualization ;  that  is,  their  ideal  of  what 
they  should  become  as  individual  men  must  be 
raised.  The  peasants  should  strive  to  be  better 
washed,  better  clad,  better  schooled,  and  more 
efficient ;  to  earn  more,  live  in  a  better  home  and 
possess  carpets,  furniture,  a  parlor,  a  porch,  a 
Sunday  suit,  a  front  yard  with  grass  and  shade- 
trees,  perhaps  a  savings-bank  account.  On  the 
resulting  basis  of  self-respect  it  will  be  possible 
to  build  a  more  socialized  character,  which  will 
be  reliable  and  loyal  to  duty  as  well  as  mild  and 
charitable  as  now.  And  only  the  striving  to  live 
better  in  a  material  way  will  solve  the  problem  of 


PROSPECTS  AND  LESSONS         341 

multiplication,  whereas  the  fraternity  and  mu- 
tual aid  that  Tolstoi  preached  have  never  done  it. 

The  survival  of  the  Sovyet  Republic  no  more 
implies  that  the  future  of  Russia  belongs  to  so- 
cialism than  the  triumph  of  the  Labor  Party  in 
Australasia  in  the  closing  decade  of  the  last  cen- 
tury committed  those  British  colonies  to  social- 
ism. The  Russian  workingmen,  to  be  sure,  are 
strong  for  socialism ;  but  while  the  workmen  pro- 
pose, in  the  end  the  peasants  dispose.  Suppose 
that  under  workers'  control  the  productivity  of 
the  mills,  mines,  and  smelters  should  sink  so  low 
that  what  the  country  desires  of  the  town — cloth- 
ing, boots,  caps,  mittens,  tools,  implements,  hard- 
ware, and  the  like — are  intolerably  scarce  and 
dear;  suppose  that  the  industrial  workers  should 
achieve  a  five-hour-day  while  the  peasants,  per- 
haps six  times  as  numerous,  work  as  hard,  say, 
as  the  vastly  better-off  American  farmer  works. 
Will  not  the  latter  force  a  readjustment?  Once 
the  peasant  gets  it  into  his  head  that  the  terms  of 
exchange  between  country  and  city  are  such  that 
food  which  costs  him  a  day's  toil  brings  him  only 
the  cloth  or  nails  produced  by  half  a  day's  labor 
of  a  factory  operative,  he  will  hold  back  his  grain, 
as  he  did  last  autumn,  when  he  would  complain: 
"I  haul  a  load  of  wheat  to  town  and  bring  back 
just  a  pair  of  boots.    What  for  a  bargain  is  that  ? ' ' 

It  may  be,  however,  that  the  workers  will  not 
be  allowed  to  control  the  factories  they  work  in 
according  to  their  own  good  pleasure.  It  is  re- 
ported that  the  delegates  from  the  factories  are 


342  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

never  to  be  more  than  a  minority  of  the  committee 
which  will  control  a  given  industry  as  the  board 
of  directors  of  a  trust  controls  an  American  indus- 
try. The  idea  is  that  by  this  means  a  balance  will 
be  preserved  between  the  interests  of  the  working 
group  and  the  interests  of  the  consumers  of  their 
product.  In  a  word,  the  factories  are  not  to  be- 
come nests  of  loafers.  If,  now,  on  these  boards 
governing  the  various  industries  peasants  sit  as 
well  as  workmen,  it  may  be  that  economic  strife 
between  city  and  country  will  be  averted. 

Even  if  this  great  jury  of  millions  of  peasants 
should  after  a  time  condemn  socialized  factories, 
as  inefficient,  unprogressive,  and  wasteful,  it  does 
not  follow  that  the  private  capitalist  will  have  his 
innings  again.  The  Russians  have  a  wonderful 
knack  for  cooperation.  Within  a  few  years  thirty 
thousand  societies  have  sprung  up  for  cooperative 
distribution.  It  is  possible  we  may  see  among  the 
peasants  a  great  movement  for  cooperative  pro- 
duction. Imagine  communes  establishing  fac- 
tories on  a  loan  of  credit  from  the  state,  exchang- 
ing their  products  among  themselves  according  to 
some  computation  of  comparative  labor  cost,  or 
selling  them  in  a  competitive  market  and  using 
their  profits  not  to  create  private  fortunes,  but  to 
build  up  community  wealth ! 

If,  however,  for  the  sake  of  his  intelligent  initia- 
tive and  managing  ability,  the  business  man  is  let 
back  again  under  conditions  of  freedom  of  enter- 
prise and  production  for  private  profit,  we  may  be 
very  sure  that,  so  long  as  the  Sovyets  endure,  he 


PROSPECTS  AND  LESSONS         343 

will  not  be  allowed  to  conduct  himself  as  we  see 
him  conducting  himself  under  governments  and 
systems  of  law  which  his  class  secretly  controls. 
He  will  be  not  master  in  the  house,  but  servant, 
as  is  the  capitalist  in  the  six  thousand  "con- 
trolled" establishments  in  England.  He  will  be 
obliged  to  submit  himself  to  a  harness  of  restric- 
tions designed  to  hinder  his  pursuing  his  own 
profit  at  the  expense  of  his  working-men  or  his 
consumers.  He  will  not  be  allowed,  as  unmiti- 
gated private  capitalism  requires,  to  drive  under- 
paid and  overworked  human  beings  to  the  produc- 
tion of  fraudulent  or  adulterated  goods,  to  be  un- 
loaded upon  the  public  by  means  of  the  plausible 
puffing  and  convincing  mendacity  known  as  adver- 
tising. At  the  point  where  clearly  he  begins  to 
harm  rather  than  serve  society  no  lawyerly  or 
judicial  prattle  about  "sacredness  of  private 
property,"  "the  rights  inherent  in  ownership," 
"industrial  freedom,"  or  "hurting  business"  will 
avert  the  salutary  curb.  / 

The  deepest  impression  I  bring  back  from  Rus- 
sia is,  how  costly  is  social  revolution!  Costly  in 
life.  Perhaps  not  over  a  thousand  lives  were  lost 
in  the  first  revolution;  but  in  the  second  revolu- 
tion and  in  the  turbulence  and  civil  strife  which 
followed  it,  the  lives  sacrificed  must  have  mounted 
to  some  tens  of  thousands.  Compared  with  the 
slaughter  in  single  battles  of  the  war,  these  are 
but  trifling,  but  in  any  case  they  are  too  many. 
In  a  society  like  ours,  with  a  bourgeoisie  large, 
capable,  and  sure  of  itself,  revolution  would  entail 


344  EUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

struggles  much  more  prolonged  and  sanguinary. 
Costly  in  organization.  All  through  Russia  the 
functional  organizations — army,  fleet,  police,  the 
civil  service,  the  schools,  and  universities,  the  rail- 
roads, the  factories,  and  inter-regional  trade — 
were  more  or  less  shattered  and  impaired  in  use- 
fulness by  the  insubordination,  the  disorders,  the 
uncertainty,  and  the  conflicts  of  authority  in- 
separable from  social  overturn.  Costly  in  good 
wiU.  It  is  not  easy  to  realize  the  apprehension, 
the  dismay,  the  terror  even,  which  seizes  upon  a 
people  when  a  struggle  for  mastery  is  going  on 
and  no  one  knows  what  is  in  store  for  him  and  his. 
The  breaking  of  the  ties  of  fellowship  and  confi- 
dence which  unite  men  across  class  lines,  and  the 
rise  of  ferocious  inter-class  animosities  which  blot 
out  all  patriotism  and  community  of  feeling, 
weaken  society  for  years.  I  Often  after  the  No- 
vember revolution  I  heard  Russians  who  formerly 
had  been  ardent  patriots  say, ' '  Our  only  hope  now 
is  that  the  Germans  will  come  in  and  restore 
order";  that  is,  give  them  back  their  property, 
and  save  them  from  the  fate  of  having  to  work.  J 
If  proletarian  rule  persists  in  Russia  and  does 
not  bring  on  an  economic  collapse,  the  working- 
class  in  all  advanced  industrial  countries  will 
speedily  become  restive  under  the  present  social 
system.  After  the  war  is  over,  impatience  with 
the  anti-social  philosophy  which  protects  the  ex- 
aggerated rights  of  property  may  be  expected  to 
spread  rapidly,  and  there  will  be  a  growing  in- 
clination to  tolerate  the  capitalist's  claims  only 


PROSPECTS  AND  LESSONS    345 

so  far  as  he  can  prove  that  he  is  rendering  an 
essential  service  to  society. 

This  is  not  to  imply,  however,  that  conditions 
will  be  favorable  to  revolving  the  social  wheel 
through  one  hundred  and  eighty  degrees  as  they 
succeeded  in  doing  in  Russia.  The  development 
in  the  Russian  proletarian  movement  of  an  irre- 
sistible force  against  which  nothing  in  society  can 
stand  has  its  cause  chiefly  in  the  alliance  of  peas- 
ants and  wage-earners.  In  most  modern-industry 
countries,  however,  the  basis  for  such  a  coopera- 
tion does  not  exist.  Generally,  the  rural  people 
have  the  reactions  of  the  private  proprietor,  and 
would  be  shocked  by  a  wholesale  disfranchisement 
and  expropriation  of  the  propertied  such  as  has 
been  put  through  in  Russia.  Lacking,  therefore, 
the  power  to  put  an  abrupt  end  to  the  capitalists ' 
control  of  industry,  the  wage-earners  may  be  ex- 
pected to  destroy  national  prosperity  by  thwart- 
ing and  harassing  in  every  possible  way  those 
whom  they  regard  as  their  exploiters.  By  con- 
certed "slacking,"  restriction  of  output,  sabotage, 
and  sudden  capricious  strikes  they  would  try  to 
prevent  the  employer  wringing  any  profit  for  him- 
self out  of  his  legal  and  economic  power  over 
them.  Thus  it  would  be  discovered  that,  with  the 
liberated  workers  of  Russia  in  full  view,  it  does 
not  pay  capitalists  to  exclude  labor  from  all  voice 
in  the  governing  of  industry. 
f  Let  it  not  be  supposed  that  the  United  States, 
with  its  qualified  political  democracy,  will  prove 
immune  to  anti-capitalist  agitatiom]  The  fact  is, 


346  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

our  society  is  one  of  the  most  vulnerable,  because 
we  have  clung  so  long  to  the  law  and  politics  of  an 
outworn  individualism  that  the  resulting  distribu- 
tion of  wealth  and  of  \ncome  would  be  grotesque 
were  it  not  so  tragic.  ^According  to  the  investi- 
gations of  Professor  King,  a  statistician  of  un- 
questioned skill  and  impartiality,  sixty-five  per 
cent,  of  our  people  are  poor;  that  is,  they  have 
little  or  no  property  except  their  clothes  and  some 
cheap  furniture,  and  their  average  annual  income 
is  less  than  $200  per  capita.  Thirty-three  per 
cent,  of  our  people  compose  the  middle  class  in 
which  each  man  leaves  at  death  from  one  to  forty 
thousand  dollars'  worth  of  property.  The  re- 
maining two  per  cent,  comprise  the  rich  and  very 
rich,  who  own  almost  one  and  one  half  times  as 
much  as  the  other  ninety-eight  per  cent,  together. 
Take  income  rather  than  wealth.  From  a  criti- 
cal study  of  all  accessible  wage  statistics  Rubinow 
concludes  that  in  the  period  1907-12  the  decline  in 
real  wages  in  this  country  was  seven  or  eight  per 
cent.,  and  in  the  period  1900-12  the  loss  was  about 
ten  per  cent.  Despite  strikes,  boycotts,  trade- 
unions,  the  new  unionism,  and  the  I.  W.  W.,,(the 
ordinary  wage-earner  has  been  losing  surely  and 
not  even  slowly,  so  that  before  the  war  his  earning 
power  was  from  ten  to  fifteen  per  cent,  less  than 
it  was  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  \  He  has  missed 
slipping  down  to  a  lower  plane  or  living  only  be- 
cause he  raises  fewer  children  than  he  used  to, 
and  his  wife  and  daughter  more  often  contribute 


PROSPECTS  AND  LESSONS         347 

to  the  family  budget;  that  is,  more  persons  work 
to  support  the  family. 

In  the  pre-war  period  nearly  half  of  the  adult 
male  workers  in  organized  industry  were  earning 
less  than  $600  a  year,  while  four  fifths  received 
less  than  $750,  which  according  to  the  unanimous 
testimony  of  social  workers  is  the  least  on  which 
a  town  family  of  normal  size  can  be  supported  in 
health  and  decency.  The  receipts  of  property 
from  the  product  of  American  industry  have 
grown  faster  than  ever  before,  while  all  the  or- 
ganization of  labor,  the  struggles  and  sacrifices  to 
resist  exploitation  by  the  employer,  have  not  only 
failed  to  increase  the  reward  of  labor,  but  have  not 
availed  to  prevent  the  actual  forcing  down  of  real 
wages. 

In  the  last  dozen  years,  since  the  exposure  of 
commercial  wrong-doing  cooled  the  infatuation  of 
the  public  with  "captains  of  industry,"  our  pro- 
gressives, by  expending  an  immense  amount  of 
agitation  and  publicity,  have  curbed  child  labor, 
limited  the  working  hours  of  women,  established 
in  a  few  States  a  minimum  wage  for  women,  put 
safety  first  in  industry,  and  won  compensation  for 
industrial  accidents.  Measuring  the  value  of  the 
accomplishment  by  the  effort  it  has  cost,  we  look 
upon  it  with  no  small  complacency  and  imagine 
we  are  making  encouraging  progress  toward  solv- 
ing the  social  question.  In  the  meantime,  how- 
ever, the  silent,  unnoted  pressure  of  capital, 
wielded  in  ever  larger  masses  and  ever  more  sue- 


348  RUSSIA  IN  UPHEAVAL 

cessful  in  wresting  from  labor  its  one  effective 
weapon,  organization,  appears  to  have  lessened 
the  share  of  the  product  of  industry  going  to  the 
workers  and  increased  the  share  going  to  owners 
of  capital.  After  all  that  has  been  done  to  make 
labor  safe  and  sanitary,  to  protect  its  rest  day 
and  insure  its  pay,  there  remains  the  morass  of 
low  wages,  screened  by  the  depreciation  of  gold, 
which  the  law  does  not  touch  and  which,  until  the 
war  produced  an  artificial  scarcity  of  labor, 
tended  to  spread  over  more  and  more  of  the  in- 
dustrial field. 

In  view  of  the  plight  in  which  labor  will  find 
itself  in  America  after  the  war,  we  cannot  hope  to 
insure  ourselves  against  a  disastrous  reverber- 
ation from  the  Russian  Revolution  unless  we  so 
accelerate  our  social  evolution  that  the  edge  will 
be  taken  off  the  just  sense  of  grievance  of  wage- 
earners.  There  is  no  contenting  all,  but  it  is  pos- 
sible to  make  the  majority  feel  that  their  inter- 
ests are  too  well  looked  after  for  them  to  risk 
tossing  a  monkey-wrench  into  the  machinery  of 
industry.  To  this  end  our  adoption  of  ameliora- 
tive policies  for  labor  ought  to  be  many  times 
prompter  and  heartier  than  it  is.  We  ought 
every  three  or  four  years  to  register  as  much 
progress  as  we  have  made  since  1905.  It  is  time 
to  recognize  that  the  day  of  industrial  autocracy  is 
past.  The  labor-fighting,  labor-crushing  policies 
which  many  employers '  associations  delight  in  are 
an  anachronism,  and  those  who  persist  in  them 
should  be  tolerated  about  as  long  as  smokers  are 


PROSPECTS  AND  LESSONS    349 

tolerated  in  a  powder  factory.  The  normal 
means  by  which  workers  protect  themselves  from 
exploitation  is  collective  bargaining,  which  pre- 
supposes the  union.  The  fact  that  only  sixteen 
per  cent,  of  American  wage-earners  are  in  unions 
has  no  doubt  a  great  deal  to  do  with  the  sinister 
tendency  in  recent  years  toward  lower  wages  and 
bigger  returns  to  capital.  In  the  production  of 
resentment  it  makes  very  little  difference  whether 
the  workingmen  are  deprived  of  the  right  to  or- 
ganize by  the  government  of  a  tsar  or  by  em- 
ployers' associations.  The  economic  effect  is  the 
same.  -t?  t% 

The  ruthless  ''hire  and  fire"  practices  of  Amer- 
ican industry  should  be  replaced  by  decent  meth- 
ods considerate  of  the  interests  and  feelings  of 
the  employees.  Cooperation  should  be  welcomed 
as  the  natural  and  reasonable  thing.  All  the  as- 
pects of  a  business  which  concern  labor  should  be 
considered  and  settled  by  joint  boards  in  which 
employer  and  employee  have  equal  representa- 
tion. Means  should  be  employed  which  will  give 
wage-earners  an  interest  in  the  prosperity  of  the 
concern.  Only  by  some  such  right-about-face  on 
the  part  of  American  capitalists  will  it  be  possi- 
ble to  avert  a  calamitous  class  strife  which  will 
shatter  the  foundations  of  our  national  prosperity. 


THE   END 


INDEX 


Agriculture,  Russian,  134-140 
Almsgiving,  293-294 
Anarchism,  16,  44 
Anarchists,  3-5,  333,  334 
Andijan,  81 
Astrakhan,  43,  44,  48 
Atrocities,  20,  105,  106,  228 
Authority,  absence  of,  15,  270, 

271 
Autocracy,  the,  155-165 

Baku,  oil  fire  at,  51 

Bazaars,  77,  81 

Begging,  293 

"Black  Hundreds,"  111,  164 

Black  Soil,  44-47 

Bokhara,  75-78 

Bolsheviki,    the,    191,    200-214, 

233,  234,  330-36 
Bourgeoisie,  196,  200,  204,  205, 

224-226,  286,  287 
"Bulgari,"  37 
Bulgars,  the,  38 
Bricks,  Central  Asian,  77,  78 
Bureaucracy,  6,  7,  167-171 

Camel,  the,  70,  71,  88,  89 

Canals,  322 

Capitalistic   farming,    138-140, 

146 
Capitalists,  treatment  of,  208- 

214,  342,  343 
Caspian,  51 
Caste,  215-224 

Caucasus,  the,  56-60,  68,  306 
Central  Asia,  70-100,  320 
Chivalry,  lack  of,  242-244 
Church  architecture,  30,  31 
Church    of    the    Resurrection, 

164,  155 


Circassians,  55,  57 
Class  differences,  215,  216 
Commercialism,  99,  100 
Communal     land  holding,     135— 

138,  151-153,  206 
Concentration  of  wealth,  215- 

217 
Constitutional   Assembly,   204- 

206,  331 
"Control  of  industry,"  208-214 
Cossacks,    107,    124,    172,    217, 

219,  225,  228,  302,  308,  315- 

317,  331,  332 
Cotton  production,  81,  306 
Crowd  psychology,  105-106 
Crusaders  in  the  Caucasus,  65 

Daghestan,  56-68 
Deforestation,  45-47 
Democracy,  222-224,  320,  321 
Dervishes,  howling,  76 
Dinya,  81,  88,  95 
Discipline,  23,  28,  189;  military, 

226-234 
Dnyepr,  47 
Duma,  the,  165,  166,  172,  173, 

191 
"Dusty-foot,"  89 

East,  the,  51-52 

Education,    popular,    190,    217* 

340;     secondary,     192,     217; 

university,  192,  248-251,  339 
Eight-hour  day,  the,  32,  282 
Erosion,  45-47 
Estates,  Russian,  138-140,  217- 

221 


Fecundity,   Russian,    144,   339, 
340 


351 


352 


INDEX 


Federal  union,  211,  321-329 

Ferghana,  81-83 

Fete  at  Mtzchet,  the,  61-67 

Finland,  311 

Finnish  tribes,  36-38 

Fisheries,  48 

Free  speech,  5 

Freight  congestion,  6 

Forests,  14,  17 

Georgian  Church,  the,  61,  318 
Georgians,  the,  54-69,  317-318 
Georgian  women,  60,  68 
German-Russians,  38-42,  48 
German    opinion    of    Russians, 

122-124 
Germany  and  Russia,  123 
Government,  the  Russian,   124, 

127 
Graft,  12,  13,  171,  269,  274 
Gregariousness,  102 
Gutchkof,  228-229,  231 

Harbin,  28 
Heathenism,  36,  57 
"Hitting"  battalions,  16 
Housing,  42 

Ignorance,  112-116,  230 
Ikons,  288-290 
Illiteracy,  111,  112,  19o 
Imperialism,  Russian,  304-309 
Individualism,     Russian,     117, 

118,  127 
Intelligentsia,  the,  124-128,  161, 

193,  197-199,  223 
Interstate  commerce,  323 
Intuitiveness   of   the    Russians, 

101,  102 
Irkutsk,  civil  war  in,  26,  27 

Jews,  the,   116,  164,   175,   176, 

194,  308,  324 

Kadets,  the,  203. 
Kakhetia,  68,  226 


Kalmucks,  43,  44 
Kazan,  36,  46,  117 
Khevsurs,  57,  65,  66 
Eipyatok,  16,  25 
Kommissar,  233,  270,  304-306, 

332 
Kreml,  31 
Kropotkin,  210 

Labor,  263-287 ;  exploitation  of, 
267-269;     aversion    to    tips, 
269;     elimination     of     petty 
graft,  270;  productivity,  272- 
274;  factory  committees,  274, 
275;    control  of  hiring,   276, 
277;     dismissal    wage,    277- 
280 ;    preposterous    demands, 
281-283 
Land  committees,  149-151 
Land  system,  the,  134-138 
Lenine,  200,  208,  335 
Liberty,  309,  311 
"Liquidation"  law,  38-41 

Manchuria,  7,  8,  27,  28 

Manners,  222,  223 

Marxism,  128,  192-195,  198,  200 

Medressehs,  76 

Meetings,  passion  for,  114 

Mensheviki,  200-204 

Meriatchenja,  106 

Militarism,  106,  107 

Merv,  the  rug  market  at,   84- 

100 
Mohammedanism,  36,  71-76 
Monasteries,  294 
Mosque,  services  in  a,  71-75 
Mountain-dwellers,       character 

of,  57-60 
Mtzchet,  61,  62 

Narodniki,  197-199 
Nationalities,  non-Russian,  307, 

310-318 
Nicholas  II,  160,  161,  308 
Nijni  Novgorod,  30-32 


INDEX 


353 


Nobility,  the  Georgian,  17 
Noble  landowners,  140-150 

Patience,  Russian,  21-23 
Patriarchalism,  254 
Patriotism,  want  of,  115-116 
Peasants,  the,  135-153 
People-ists,   197-199 
Petrograd,  17,  18,  170-173,  324 
Pobyedonostsef,    117,   163,   299, 

300,  324 
Pogroms,  116 
Politicians,  190,  191 
Pomieshchiks,  the,   140-150 
Priests,  Russian,  290,  292,  299, 

301 
Prisoners  in  Siberia,  11,  12,  13, 

14 
Prisoners,  political,  177-178 
Protopopof,  170,  171 
Public  offices,  7,  43,  195 

Railroad  aceidents,  18,  19 
Railway  rolling  stock,  6,  13,  14, 

31 
Rasputin  scandal,  the,  169-170 
Red  tape,  6,  7,  13,  14 
Religion,  288-303 
Revolution    of     1905-06,     163- 

165,  200 
Revolutionary  parties,  196-203 
Revolutionists,      returning,     3, 

175-195 
Revolution,  the,   171-174,  309- 

311,  330,  343,  344 
Rodzianko,  173 
Romanoffs,  the,  155-161 
Rugs,  Oriental,  54,  89-100 
Rural  villages,  45,  138,  215 
Russian  people,  the,  100-130 
Russian   Orthodox   Church,   61, 

117,  288-303 
Russian   traits,    116-122,    127- 

130 
Russo-American  friendship,  129, 

130 


Sabotage,  345 

Samarcand,  81 

Saratof,  34,  43 

Sarts,  the,  77 

Sects,  Russian,  301-303 

Serfdom,  218-222 

Siberia,  3-29 

Siberia,  exiles  in,  177-187,  193, 

200 
Siberians,  319,  320 
Slavery,  219-220 
Smuggling,  11,  23 
Sobor,  289,  301 
Social  Democratic  Party,  199- 

200 
Social     Revolutionary     Party, 

199-206,  331 
Socialism,  5,  190-195,  206-214, 

341,  342 
Socialization  of  factories,  208- 

214 
Soil  exhaustion,  47,  114 
Soil  hunger,  143-145 
Soldiers,  Russian,  226-234 
Sormova,  32,  35 
Sovyet,  6,  7,  204-206,  232,  285, 

286,  331-342 
Standards,  want  of,  118,  121 
Stolypin  law,  152 
"Striking  a  bargain,"  94 
Suicide,  165 

Tartars,  36,  318,  323 
Tcherktska,  55,  56,  62,  67 
Tekke  rugs,  95-100 
Tifiis,  53 

Tolerance,  Russian,  116-118 
Trans-Siberian  Railroad,  the,  8 
Troop  trains,  18-20 
Trotzky,  207-214,  226,  335 
Turcomans,  the,  70,  71,  87-100 
Turcoman  women,  96-100 

Ukraina,  312-313,  323 
University  students,  192 
Urals,  the,  17 


354 


INDEX 


Vodka,  239,  240 ;  prohibition  of, 

35,  36,  324,  325 
Volga,  the,  30-48,  322 


Wages,  32,  271,  346,  347 

War,  Russia  and  the,  35,  166- 

168,  229,  230,  233 
Whiskers,  54,  55 
White  Russians,  312 
Winter,  effect  of,  on  character, 

108 


Women,  Russian,  238-260; 
causes  of  emancipation,  257- 
289 ;  educational  opportuni- 
ties, 248-251;  independent 
spirit,  245,  253,  254;  in  in- 
dustry, 238,  239;  in  profes- 
sions, 246-247 ;  peasant 
women,  260;  rights,  248;  su- 
periority in  character,  242; 
women's  battalion,  254 

Women's  battalion,  the,  18,  254 

Working-day,  272 


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